A cold chill ran through the Playcrafters Barn Theatre at Friday's opening-night performance of Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible; a riveting, partially fictionalized story about the hysteria that took place during the Salem Witch Trials in the Puritan town of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692. A group of young women are accused of casting spells, communing with the dead, and putting curses on children. The subsequent Salem Witch Trials, meanwhile, consisted of depositions, legal proceedings, hearsay, evidence (or lack thereof), and religious leaders of the day investigating alleged heresy and evil-doings involving the practices of witchcraft and black magic. Director Patti Flaherty delivered a provocative and captivating production that kept you interested and on the edge of your seat.

Democrats often propose ideas that take forever to explain and are often difficult for the masses to understand. That wasn't the case last week.

Described by Time Out New York as an “insanely fun mixtape musical” and by Variety magazine as a show that “gleefully apes the worst excesses of the era's pole-dancing, crotch-grinding, big-hair-tossing movies,” the Broadway smash Rock of Ages lands at Davenport's Adler Theatre on March 17, treating audiences to a celebration of 1980s chart-toppers that NY1 called “so cleverly staged and impressively performed that it's an irresistible, offbeat trip of a show that hits all the right notes.”

A true-life tale involving social reformer Frederick Douglass, iconic author Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the United States' first public discussions about abolition, the historical drama Sons & Daughters of Thunder will enjoy its world-premiere presentations at Davenport's Putnam Museum & Science Center on March 16 and 17, with the locally produced film boasting the talents of filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle and more than two dozen familiar area performers.

The worlds of literature and music will blend in unique fashion on March 16 when Chamber Music Quad Cities hosts its Trinity Episcopal Cathedral presentation “An Evening with Nathan Hill,” with some of the ensemble's premiere talents performing thematically related compositions while Hill reads passages from his debut novel The Nix, a work cited by Entertainment Weekly as the best book of 2016.

March 17 would mark the 100th birthday of the late, great jazz legend Nat King Cole, and in recognition of this historic date in music history, Polyrhythms' Third Sunday Jazz Series will present a thrilling salute to the artist in the Redstone Room's “A Tribute to Nat King Cole,” a March 17 celebration of the artist's output led by the area jazz greats of the Tony Sconyers Quintet.

Rozz Tox links up Cave Light and Harakiri, a pair of Minnesotan indie/psych-rock bands, with Quad Cities-based openers Condor & Jaybird and Bold Little Airwave on March 20.

It was mentioned – more than once – at its opening-night performance that the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse’s production of Diamonds & Divas: A Murderous Fiasco was the comedy's United States professional premiere. If we were supposed to be impressed by that fact, it really isn't saying much, as author Robin Hawdon's script would feel right at home with a group of American middle-schoolers. However, the cast, composed of many familiar Circa '21 favorites, injects talent amidst the chaos of this melodramatic escapade, almost fully redeeming an otherwise ridiculous affair.

A lobbyist who works for a business-related organization asked me a question the other day that I've been hearing a lot lately: "Who's going to be the stopper now?"

What he meant was: Who in the legislative process can be counted on these days to help derail bills which are deemed hostile to business interests?