A world-premiere workshop production being staged at Davenport's Mockingbird on Main from March 24 through April 1, Anywhere but Here tells of a young man from a big city forced, by the advent of the 2020 pandemic, to move back into his parents' rural Midwestern home. It's a situation likely familiar to many. It's certainly familiar to the show's playwright and director Bradley Robert Jensen, who fashioned his own experiences into what he describes as “a family dramedy centered around people choosing each other over each other's differences.”

It’s been almost a decade since I attended a show at Augustana College. Since I was there last, Augie has built the gorgeous Brunner Theatre Center, where a dear friend and I were fortunate enough to attend Tuesday night’s dress rehearsal of playwright Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds.

Offered on March 27 as a program in the "Evenings at Butterworth Center" series, the Moline venue will host historian Sarah Rovang as she presents Georgia O’Keeffe & Deere: The Making of a Modern Masterpiece, detailing how the legendary artist forever established a local connection by referring to her monumental work Sky Above Clouds IV as the “Deere Clouds.”

Held in honor of the Figge Art Museum’s major exhibition Sporting Fashion: Outdoor Girls 1800 to 1960, a quintet of classical-music talents will share the spotlight when the Davenport venue and the Quad City Symphony Orchestra host the special March 25 program Up Close with the Figge: Women in Music, a night of glorious compositions featuring Hannah Holman on cello, Marian Lee on piano, and Emily Nash, Janis Sakai, and Deborah Dakin all on viola.

A trio of country-music superstars will combine their chart-topping talents at the Rust Belt on March 25 when the East Moline hosts the national tour of Roots & Boots: '90s Electric Throwdown, a night of exhilarating genre smashes boasting the energetic stylings of Sammy Kershaw, Collin Raye, and Aaron Tippin.

With New York magazine calling their most recent album a showcase of "deliciously dark music" and "a mix of frantic, furious riffs, dour vocals, and existential poetry” and Pitchfork deeming it their “most expansive statement yet,” the critically lauded rockers of Protomartyr play Davenport's Raccoon Motel on March 30 in support of their latest release Ultimate Success Today, a recording that inspired NPR to rave of the musicians, “I don't think they needed to level up, but boy, did they.”

With the Canadian Broadcasting Company calling him "an absolute juggernaut" and The Guardian deeming him "a storytelling titan," folk singer and guitarist Willi Carlisle headlines a March 26 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the Washington Post adding of the artist, “Carlisle has a poetry in describing songs passed down through generations as a most precious cultural commodity, and a passion and immediacy in performing them.”

Touring in support of their fall release Flowers for June, Jay Ernest and the Minneapolis-based musicians of Church of Cash bring their Johnny Cash tribute to Davenport's Raccoon Motel on March 24, performing from the legendary singer's expansive repertoire and the album's repertoire that boasts undersung hits such as “A Thing Called Love,” “Dark as a Dungeon,” and “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky.”

On March 28 and 29, a Nickelodeon smash now in its 10th year comes roaring – or rather barking – to delightful stage life when Moline's Vibrant Arena at the MARK welcomes the national tour of PAW Patrol Live! Heroes Unite, a brand-new, full-length amphitheater adventure featuring super-size versions of the furry characters that kids of all ages know and love.

For all those students who took any opportunity to laugh at their teachers, they can now atone for it by laughing with teachers during the national tour stop of Bored Teachers: We Can't Make This Stuff Up!, a night of standup hilarity coming to Davenport's Adler Theatre on March 17.

For those who don't know what to do with themselves now that the NFL season is over, members of Quad City Rugby will visit the Davenport Public Library's main branch on March 20 for the presentation Rugby: More Than Just a Game, teaching participants about the pastime and how it instills great virtues within players including teamwork, sportsmanship, discipline, respect, and enjoyment for all.

Participating in a Figge Art Museum Artist Talk on March 30, Mexican/Latinx multidisciplinary artist Tlisza Jaurique will discuss her inherited indigenous upbringing and aesthetics in conjunction with Decolonial Intervention, the Davenport venue's current exhibit in which Jaurique has created her own artistic intervention surrounding the Spanish Vice Regal collection, reexamining the art in this space and providing a different viewpoint that allows for a shared authority of the collection.

The beginning of spring will also be a season of love at Moline's Prospect Park Auditorium when Quad City Music Guild opens its 2023 lineup with the modern classic Rent, creator Jonathan Larson's unforgettable rock opera that earned four Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and the hearts of countless millions of stage fans the world over.

To download a PDF of the puzzle, click here.

Before getting to the awards – and one particular movie gave us loads to talk about on that front – let me begin by addressing the event itself, because last night's 95th Annual Oscars telecast was a little boring. Intentionally, gloriously, blessedly boring.

Governor JB Pritzker declared last week when announcing the formation of the Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center that the state was building “the best behavioral health system in the nation.” It was quite a bold thing to say. So, my associate Isabel Miller and I asked a couple of follow-up questions: How long will this take and how much will it cost?

As a rule, horror sequels aren't supposed to be good. Fifth sequels in any genre aren't supposed to be good. Sequels whose basic M.O. is “Let's do what we've always done … but in a different city!” aren't supposed to be good. And yet, almost preposterously, Scream VI proves to be very, very good – though if that praise seems suspect, I'd be willing to amend it to “very, very entertaining.”

A Grammy-winning icon and bona-fide county-music legend makes her eagerly awaited appearance at the Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center on March 24 with the Davenport arrival of Tanya Tucker, whose first radio hit "Delta Dawn" – recorded when she was only 13 years old – has thus far led to the release of 25 studio albums, three live albums, and 30 compilation albums.

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