On December 17, a legendary comedian and one of his most iconic entertainments will be celebrated at Davenport's Adler Theatre in the touring sensation A Live Conversation with Chevy Chase, with the famed comedy star of Saturday Night Live, Community, and Fletch sharing stories and taking part in a Q&A session alongside a 35th-anniversary screening of his beloved holiday film National lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

A two-evening celebration of the Swedish tradition based on the legend of Saint Lucia, Queen of Light, the 2024 Lucia Nights Festival in Bishop Hill will, on December 13 and 14, deliver a seasonal treat featuring live music, a barn dance, a chili supper, a tree-lighting ceremony, carriage rides, and more.

Lauded by Broadway World as an adults-only entertainment that sends "audience members off with a warm smile and probably exhausted from laughter," author Matthew Lombardo's one-woman comedy sensation Who's Holiday enjoys a six-show run at Rock Island's Circa '21 Speakeasy, this spiky December 5 through 20 treat also hailed by the New York Times as "a raunchy riff on a yuletide tale that dirties up Christmas while ultimately reveling in its spirit."

With her most recent booth Guts a number-one bestseller on lists for the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher's Weekly, an award-winning author and cartoonist serves as the virtual guest in The Magic of Raina Telgemeier, a December 10 event hosted by Illinois Libraries Present and presented by the East Moline and Silvis Public Libraries.

A quintet of entertaining works by a lauded Tony nominee enjoys a December 6 through 8 staging at Scott Community College's Black Box Theatre, with director Kevin Babbitt's Five of Fives treating audiences to a brisk night of theatre that finds nine gifted student actors enacting numerous roles created by lauded playwright David Ives.

A 2017 Tony Award nominee and Drama Desk Award winner, as well as a work by the masterful composing team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, Broadway's Anastasia enjoys a City Circle Theatre Company presentation at the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts staging from December 6 through 15, the musical lauded by Time Out New York as "a sweeping adventure, romance, and historical epic whose fine craftsmanship will satisfy musical-theatre fans beyond the show's ideal audience of teenage girls."

Featuring peppy and winning versions of holiday classics such as “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Run, Rudolph, Run,” and “Winter Wonderland,” the 1960s musical Winter Wonderettes closes the 2024 season at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse, this energetic and glittering holiday package guaranteed to delight audiences of all ages.

Offering its last celebration of the written and spoken word in 2024, Rock Island's Midwest Writing Center and Rozz-Tox team up for a December 7 event in the SPECTRA Reading Series, with lauded author Jacob Saenz and writers from Narratives QC presenting a night of public readings, an open mic, and a community write-in.

Touring in support of their most recent album The Fear of Standing Still – a recording that No Depression said "feels like it stands on the mountain of the last 20 years and surveys the field"– the alt-country and Americana musicians of American Aquarium headline a December 10 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, their latest inspiring Saving Country Music to rave of the band, "No matter who you are or where you come from, they take you somewhere you want to go."

The Palme d'Or winner at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival that also received Best Foreign-Language Film nominations from the Academy Awards and Golden Globes, the Japanese family drama Shoplifters enjoys a special December 12 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, with IndieWire's David Ehrlich praising the work as one that "stings (with) the loneliness of not belonging to anyone, and the messiness of sticking together."

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