Arriving at Moline's Spotlight Theatre just in time for Halloween, the professional dancers of Ballet Quad Cities will stage choreographer Deanna Carter's adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic horror novel Dracula on October 19 and 20, with the notorious count portrayed by international dance star Domingo Rubio and performances preceded by the debuting vignettes of Frankenstein's Follies.

New exhibitions of screen prints and photographs will be on display October 19 through November, as Rock Island's Quad City Arts Center presents A Guide to Domestic Measurement, a collection of works by Iowa City artist Alison Filley, and Reconstructing the Rise of Asymmetrical Skylines, a creative assemblage by Davenport-based photographer Matthew Terry.

Described by NoDepression.com as possessing “a natural signature sound that is as timeless as it is enjoyable,” and with his home country's The Saturday Paper deeming his latest album Gon' Boogaloo “a masterpiece,” Australian blues artist C.W. Stoneking headlines a Moeller Nights concert on October 19, sharing the talents that led The Guardian to call him “a droll entertainer with a flair for making old-timey sounds into party music for the present.”

A pair of highly regarded country musicians from Nashville will team up at the Ohnward Fine Arts Center on October 20, when the Maquoketa-based venue presents the touring sensation The Dave & Daphne Show – an evening of toe-tapping originals and country and gospel favorites performed by recording stars Dave Salyer and Daphne Anderson.

With Exclaim! praising his latest album as “a soft and sumptuous collection” that “features some of the finest songs of his career,” Grammy-winning folk rocker Ray LaMontagne plays Davenport's Adler Theatre on October 24 in support of his 2018 release Part of the Light, a work that led Spill magazine to state, “The only disappointing aspect of this albuym is that it is only nine songs long.”

There was a sanctuary in the sanctuary, and what a gorgeous venue: the Spotlight Theatre nestled inside the old Scottish Rite Cathedral in downtown Moline. Consequently, you could feel the excitement in the air for the opening night of co-owners and co-directors Brent and Sara Tubbs’ first musical, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And boasting songs from the Disney film, music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and a book by Peter Parnell (based, of course, on Victor Hugo's novel), this production was the perfect opener for this magnificent site.

I realized it was not going to be an ordinary show right away. As the lights dimmed, the accompanist for this non-musical production attempted to play her electronic keyboard, but it would not produce a single note. After a couple more attempts, a stagehand walked out and started pulling several times on a small-engine pull cord – a.k.a. a chainsaw. That led to a sputtering engine that evidently started the keyboard … thus allowing the pianist to play the opening theme song to a 20th Century Fox film. All this set the appropriate tone for the rest of the Richmond Hill Players' latest and incredibly silly production: an adaptation of Molière's Scapin.

JB Pritzker was recently endorsed by Crain’s Chicago Business. Yes, you read that right. The state’s premiere business magazine endorsed a candidate whose biggest promise is to raise taxes on the publication’s well-off subscriber base.

In the words of Oscar Hammerstein, “A song’s not a song 'til you sing it” – and sing they did at Tuesday's dress rehearsal for Quad City Music Guild's musical revue A Grand Night for Singing.