Described by the Chicago Reader as “a hilarious adult romp through the holiday season” and by the Chicago Tribune as “well-stocked with laughs and wry human commentary,” the stage version of David Sedaris' iconic The Santaland Diaries serves as the Mississippi Bend Players' first production outside its traditional summer seasons, the show's December 12 through 15 run at Augustana College sure to deliver what Broadway World deemed a “delightful and sometimes edgy holiday comedy extravaganza.”

With the New York Times lauding the show as “both a peppy celebration of can-do spirit and a more somber exploration of what American servicemen experienced when they marched home from World War II,” the Tony Award-winning musical Bandstand serves as the latest presentation in the Adler Theatre's Broadway at the Adler series, its December 16 staging in Davenport underscoring why Time Out New York wrote, “The show defies you not to be moved.”

One of the Quad Cities' most adored holiday traditions returns to Davenport's Adler Theatre on December 14 and 15 when the professional talents of Ballet Quad Cities perform Tchaikovsky's holiday dance classic The Nutcracker, an event boasting new choreography and staging by Artistic Director Courtney Lyon and Artistic Associate Emily Kate Long, live musical accompaniment by Orchestra Iowa, and the return of Domingo Rubio, who danced the title role in the company's recent presentation of Dracula Unleashed!

An annual holiday-music tradition returns to the area as the professional vocal ensemble the Nova Singers presents its latest A Nova Christmas concerts, with exciting and moving arrangements of non-secular, classical, traditional, and contemporary holiday favorites performed December 13 at Davenport's St. Paul Lutheran Church and December 14 at Galesburg's First Lutheran Church.