Performing a special event as part of East Moline's Summer Concert Series in Runners Park, the Billboard-charting local talents of the Avey Grouws Band will play an outdoor afternoon engagement on July 2, demonstrating why Goldmine praised their 2021 release Tell Tale Heart for its “adept arrangements, clear confidence, and a decidedly agile approach as far as the shifts in style.”

As the second professional production of the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre’s summer season, Young Frankenstein delivered a show of monstrously impressive proportions.

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Charm counts for a lot, and in Pixar's Elemental, it counts for so much that it's easy to ignore the film's rather lazy stereotyping, strangely under-imagined social dynamic, and plot-goosing crisis that, I'm sorry to say, is all about plumbing issues.

My exposure to Alfred Hitchcock's work has been fairly minimal, and aside from seeing a few clips, my total time spent with his films is close to zero. But several years ago, I did attend a stage version of Hitchcock's movie The 39 Steps, a play adapted by Patrick Barlow from John Bucan’s novel. And this past Friday, I caught in another in director James Beaudry's Timber Lake Playhouse’s production, which was largely a fun romp in the woods.

As I told you last week, the staid and conservative Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago’s latest and more liberal ideas on taxes and crime reduction have caused some folks to sit up and take notice, including Illinois Senate President Don Harmon. “I think that the Civic Committee is approaching major problems with a very different perspective,” Harmon said.

Famed for being the last of the extant works by the playwright Euripides, and featuring some of the most famous characters, locales, and events in the classical-Greek canon, Iphigenia in Aulis serves as the second production in Genesius Guild's 2023 season, its June 24 through July 2 run marking the first time the masked tragedy has been performed in Rock Island's Lincoln Park since 1959.

One of the most venerable and beloved stage musicals of all time, The Sound of Music continues the 2023 summer season at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse, the show adored by all generations for its rich characters, beautiful celebration of family, and an unforgettable Rodgers & Hammerstein score boasting such iconic songs as “My Favorite Things,” “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” “Climb Ev'ry Mountain,” “Edleweiss,” and the unforgettable title tune.

A glorious stage fairytale boasting a legendary score by an iconic composing duo, the Tony-winning Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella will be presented by the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre June 29 through July 16, this beloved classic with its fresh script by Douglas Carter Beane an entertainment, according to the Associated Press, that "crackles with sweetness and freshness, combining a little Monty Python's Spamalot with some Les Misérables."

With the program designed to introduce children to theatre and help them leave to communicate, the Timber Lake Playhouse's Magic Owl Children's Theatre series continues in Mt. Carroll this summer with the long-awaited return of Pig Tales, a one-hour, madcap adventure being staged on the mornings of June 20 through 24.

Authors of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and more will share their talents and help strengthen the talents of others during the Midwest Writing Center's 2023 David R. Collins Writers Conference at Augustana College's F.W. Olin Center for Educational Technology, a June 22 through 23 celebration of the written word boasting workshops, readings, book pitches, and more, with special events planned at several additional Quad Cities locales.

Delivering the story of an America that no longer exists and one of the most challenging extended periods in American history, John Donald O'Shea will host the in-person program Memories of the Great Depression at the Riock Island Public Library's Downtown Branch on June 22, the presenter and familiar area-theatre participant the author of two Memories of the Great Depression books on his subject: A Time Forgotten and A Time Remembered.

With the eagerly anticipated weekend event hosted by Rock Island's Quad City Arts and taking place for the seventh time, glorious colors and imaginative designs will be gracing the pavement of Rock Island's Schwiebert Riverfront Park in the Quad Cities Chalk Art Fest, a June 24 and 25 summertime fixture boasting beautiful artistic creations, live music, children's activities, food and drink vendors, and more than $1,800 in cash prizes.

The first Pakistani film ever to be selected for screening at Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for four major awards and won two, writer/director Saim Sadiq's Joyland enjoys a June 25 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, this 2022 critical smash the last of four award-winning independent films to be shown throughout June in recognition and celebration of Gay Pride Month.

Praised by the The Bristol Herald Courier as being "massive in voice and fluid in style," and by Taste of Country as an artist who "has always known the power of a song," rising country singer/songwriter Larry Fleet brings his national tour to Davenport's Adler Theatre on June 24, his talents having inspired Whiskey Riff to rave, “There’s just something about a live acoustic performance from Larry Fleet that feels like a borderline spiritual awakening.”

Lauded by the Charleston City Paper as its "Singer/Songwriter of the Year," and praised for "deftly blending an array of influences that nod toward crooning pop-rock in the vein of Chris Isaak or Roy Orbison, the theatrical roots-rock excess of Bruce Springsteen, and the dark post-punk romanticism of Echo & the Bunnymen," Johnny Delaware performs a solo concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel on June 23, the artist also famed for his tenures with the alt-rockers of Susto and The Artisanals.

Touring in support of their most recent album One to Grow On, a 2021 release that inspired Saving Country Music to rave that "the single greatest band in country music at the moment has just released one of the single greatest records you will hear in country music in the last few years," the Austin, Texas-based ensemble Mike & the Moonpies headline a June 25 engagement at Maquoketa' Codfish Hollow Barn, their sound praised by No Depression for its “shining tautness” and “crisp precision that is marvellous.”

With the group's new Emotional Contracts lauded by Seven Days as "their strongest album yet" and "a remarkably lean, focused project," the alternative rockers of Deer Tick headline a June 24 concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, the artists' June release leading Americana UK to rave, "You have to believe that Deer Tick have the energy and maturity to keep going for at least another 20 years."

Touring in support of his latest release Last of a Better Days Ahead, a work that Echoes & Dust called "a brilliant album" that "draws on the strengths of an impressive career and still expands the scope of [the artist's] music," Charlie Parr headlines a June 22 concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, the country and blues-rock singer/songwriter's most recent recording also hailed by Acoustic Guitar as "chock full of memories and energy with a sprightly sense of adventure."

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