One of few musicals in history to win Tonys, a Grammy, and the Academy Award for Best Picture, the legendary Chicago makes its long-awaited debut at Rock island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse with its May 7 through July 5 run, this second-longest-running show in Broadway history a smash with both audiences and critics, the New York Times stating, "It has theatrical muscle, the characters are vivid, and its issues are ongoing in our public discourse."

Hailed by the Des Moines Register as a "punchy comedy" with a "tightly coiled script," the zany farce Girls' Weekend makes its Quad Cities debut at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre May 2 through 11, this comic delight the first full-length published play written by Des Moines native Karen Schaeffer.

Hailed by Variety as a “wonderfully funny” and “ambitiously constructed work,” and by the New York Observer as “unshowily fresh and humane,” playwright David Auburn's Proof closes the 2024-25 theatre season at Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center, this Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner also lauded by the New York Daily News as a “smart and compassionate play of ideas.”

From April 26 through May 4, high-flying fun will be on hand when the student talents of Davenport Junior Theatre present a brand-new take on J.M. Barrie's classic Peter Pan, an extraordinary tale of excitement and adventure written specifically for the Quad Cities company by Junior Theatre alum and St. Ambrose University graduate Brooke Galván.

Based on an unfinished Charles Dickens novel and the winner of five 1985 Tony Awards including Best Musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood enjoys a City Circle Theatre Company presentation at the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts May 2 through 11, the critically lauded smash famed for being the first Broadway musical to be presented with multiple endings, the finales for each performance determined by audience vote.

A special night of brilliant music and blistering horror transpires at Davenport's Capitol Theatre on May 8 with the venue hosting Frizzi to Fucli 2025: "Zombie," the Composer's Cut, an event that finds Zombie composer, orchestrator, and conductor Fabio Frizzi headlining a thrilling, soundtracked screening of the genre classic – Lucio Fulci's first-ever horror film – as performed by gifted live musicians.

One of the most ticklish and tuneful operettas in theatrical history enjoys an April 25 through May 24 run at Davenport's St. Ambrose University with the theatre department's staging of The Pirates of Penzance, the beloved Gilbert & Sullivan masterpiece whose 1981 Broadway production won the Tony Award for Best Revival and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical.

Described by Glide magazine as “one of the most unflappably earnest musicians on the planet” and by Grammy-winning icon John Mayer as “the best live performer I've ever seen,” rock and Americana singer/songwriter/guitarist Martin Sexton returns to Davenport's Redstone Room on April 25, this time lending his signature style to his rendition of the iconic Beatles album Abbey Road.

With their album EXTC! released April 4, the recording inspiring Medium to rave that "the clarity of the vocals, upon the addicting and ever-changing thrum of the beat, is a marvel in the production of modern music," EXTC: XTC’s Terry Chambers & Friends headlines an April 30 Redstone Room concert co-presented by Ragged Records and sponsored by Planet 93.9, bringing Chambers, Steve Hampton, and Terry Lines to Davenport on the band's "North American Cushty Tour 2025."

Touring in support of this year's Blood Ties, and album that Louder says finds its creator "sharper than ever," Black Star Riders, Thin Lizzy, and The Almighty lead singer Ricky Warwick makes his eagerly awaited return to Moline's Rascals Live on April 26, his latest recording also hailed by Cryptic Rock as "an intense, raw experience through heartache, personal reflection, and the tattoos that life leaves on the soul."

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