Before the Rock Island Public Library became a literally public library, there was a subscription library that started in 1855. And on November 29 at the downtown branch, the informative and engaging program A Library Is Born: RIPL the Prequel will take participants back to the very beginning, detailing the process that led to the building's 1872 opening as Illinois' first truly public library.

On November 27, the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts invites audiences to celebrate the holiday season in style by attending Christmas with Jim McDonough & His Orchestra: The 20th Anniversary Tour, a dazzling stage production featuring International Steinway Artist and Iowa native McDonough alongside his 14-piece professional orchestra, performing spectacular arrangements of favorite Christmas music and other all-time hits.

Lauded by the Chicago Tribune as “hilarious and heartwarming” and praised for its “bright comic zest” and “swinging music” by the New York Times, the stage adaptation Elf: The Musical – based on the 2003 screen comedy starring Will Ferrell – enjoys a November 30 through December 4 run at Moline's Prospect Park Auditorium, this Quad City Music Guild season-ender treating patrons to a holiday tale that Broadway World called an “upbeat, oddball, and tuneful concoction.”

Winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and named by New York Times reviewers in 2018 as the third-greatest American play of the past quarter century, playwright Annie Baker's The Flick enjoys its area debut at Iowa City's Riverside Theatre from November 18 through December 11, the Pulitzer committee labeling the work a "thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters ... rendering lives rarely seen on the stage."