Described by TheBroadwayBlog.com as a “groundbreaking combination of storytelling, music, and technology” and Theaterlife as “an electrifying visual delight,” the dance-fusion ensemble iLuminate will light up the Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center on April 19 and 20, demonstrating why, in 2011, this singular sensation became a national obsession during its run on TV's America's Got Talent.

Screening locally through a special partnership between Fathom Events and distribution company GKIDS, the new anime entertainment Okko's Inn will enjoy April 22 and 23 presentations at Rave Cinemas Davenport 53rd 18 + IMAX, the latest work by lauded director Kitarô Kôsaka praised by Pittsburgh magazine for its “easy and very watchable charm,” and by the Pittsburgh City Paper for its “fantastical elemets” and “heartfelt lessons on family and acceptance.”

Lauded by AllMusic.com for his “emotionally charged voice and rich, melodic songwriting style,” British-born, New York-based singer/songwriter Bobby Long showcases his rock, folk, and Americana gifts as a Moeller Nights headliner on April 18, his latest album Sultan praised by The Hype magazine as a work that “pays homage to Sgt. Pepper’s-era Beatles in a wonderful way.”

This year, Easter weekend at the Redstone Room will showcase a thrillingly wide range of musicians and genres, as the Davenport venue hosts headlining sets with the folk-pop quartet Darlingside on April 19, the Quad Cities-based reggae talents of Rude Punch on April 20, and an Easter-Sunday concert with the Songbird Jazz Quartet performing as April 21 guests in Polyrhythms' Third Sunday Jazz Workshop & Matinée Series.

Touring in support of the band's sophomore album Lightning Round – an August release in which, according to Rolling Stone, its musicians “refine and polish the blend of indie-pop, folk, and rock that they introduced on their 2015 debut” – the Minnesota-based Bad Bad Hats play a Moeller Nights concert on April 24, demonstrating the talents that NPR described as “programmed to fire all neural pathways associated with carefree indie-rock fun.”

The difficulty of our times is not that we are locked up; we aren’t. The difficulty is that far too many of us are manipulated into choosing a prison cell over freedom.

What’s it like being big? I guess it all depends on perspective and age. After all, adulthood is filled with all kinds of responsibilities and stress that accompany being grown; when we're young, we wish to be old, and when we’re old(er), we yearn to be young. So goes the storyline for Big: The Musical, the lighthearted comedy now playing at Moline's Spotlight Theatre. And Friday’s opening-night performance was loads of fun for everyone.

One of the most successful and adored film comedies of the 1980s will be given new musical-comedy stage life at the Spotlight Theatre April 5 through 14 when the Moline venue presents the area debut of Big: The Musical, a Tony-nominated charmer by the composing team of David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr. that DC Theatre Scene said “is filled with zany moments along with memorable musical numbers.”

Continuing the company's plan of producing all of William Shakespeare's plays by 2023, area verse-theatre troupe the Prenzie Players delivers one of the Bard's freshest and funniest titles in its April 5 through 13 QC Theatre Workshop staging of The Comedy of Errors – a work that esteemed literary critic Harold Bloom said “reveals Shakespeare's magnificence at the art of comedy” and demonstrated “mastery in action, incipient character, and stagecraft.”