While enjoying my Saturday afternoon at the Timber Lake Playhouse, I believe I realized what the “steel” means in the theatre’s latest production – playwright Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias. Based on Harling’s own personal life experience and the death of his sister, this show has many poignant moments, involving both laughter and tears, as we take a look inside the lives of six eccentric, delicate, but tough-as-steel Southern women in northwest Louisiana.

New pieces by two gifted Illinois artists – both of whom create deeply personal works that reflect on experiences everyone can relate to – will fill the Quad City Arts Center gallery from August 23 through October 11, with Rock Island's Lisa Mahar presenting the mixed-media exhibition Rainbows & Sunshine, and Peoria's Jessica Bingham debuting paintings in her exhibit The Neighborhood Within.

Two singer/songwriters familiar to Quad Cities audiences – one originally from Bettendorf, the other an 11-year resident of Muscatine – will enjoy individual headliner concerts at Davenport's Redstone Room, with pop-rock musician Tim Stop playing the venue on August 28, and folk-rock troubador Andrew Landers performing locally on August 30.

Described by PopMatters as “a talent to keep an eye on,” as well as “a winning songwriter who manages to mix humor with traditional country sentiment without falling into hokey pastiche,” Nashville's Alex Williams makes his debut appearance at the Rock Island Brewing Company on August 30, his 2017 album debut Better Than Myself leading RoughStock to call the singer/songwriter “an artist who is right up there with Jamey Johnson, Jason Isbell, and Chris Stapleton.”

Performing from a repertoire dating back nearly half a century, the legendary, Grammy-winning ensemble Steely Dan brings its national tour to Moline's TaxSlayer Center on September 4, the band's unique blend of rock, jazz, pop, R&B and soul inspiring Rolling Stone to call the group “the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies.”

The Illinois AFL-CIO hosted its annual State Fair reception last week. The highlight was probably a speech by Governor JB Pritzker, who thanked his audience of union leaders for their support in the 2018 campaign and for their help passing an enormous amount of legislation during his first session of the General Assembly.

But there was also some real news. The event was the last time Michael Carrigan attended as the organization's president.

Even though the raunchy comedy Good Boys, like the Jonah Hill/Michael Cera slapstick Superbad, is about nerdy best friends prepping for a party and boasts Superbad screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as producers, I didn't spend much time at the new film reflecting on its 2007 cousin. I did, however, think a lot about Bugsy Malone, Alan Parker's 1976 kiddie musical that imagined a stereotypical 1930s gangster flick cast entirely with teens and tweens.

With their combined talents being employed nearly 20 individual outdoor sets on August 16 and 17, more than 100 local Quad Cities artists will perform at the inaugural Sweatstock music festival at East Moline's Murphy Park, the organizers for this special tribute to Woodstock (held a half-century ago on August 15-18, 1969) including All Sweat Productions, Hive Event Consulting, and Murphy Park Events.