Friday's opening-night performance of A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder at the Spotlight Theatre was hilarious, with a richly talented company of performers that blended together extremely well. This musical comedy was full of clever slapstick routines and catchy tunes executed by terrific actors who also have strong singing voices, and director Brent Tubbs did an outstanding job delivering a satisfying production that is sure to make you chuckle.

Among the front-runners for this year's Best Picture Oscar are a previous Academy Award winner's loving salute to his childhood nanny; a period bio-pic about revered music icons; a feel-good dramedy in the vein of Driving Miss Daisy; and Spike Lee's cinematic confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan that ends with searing indictments of the 2017 rally/riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, and, by extension, the president of the United States.

Guess which of these films, at present, is the least controversial.

Governor JB Pritzker's administration has confirmed that its new public pension plan will slash $800 million from the state's scheduled pension payment next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

A series of fractured fairytales that families can dance to will delight audiences from February 16 through 24, as Davenport Junior Theatre stages the area premiere of Aesop's Falables (A Rock Musical), a student-performed entertainment in which Aesop's familiar figures rebel against their stereotypes and teach valuable lessons along the way.

Running February 27 through April 6 at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, playwright Robin Hawdon's slapstick riot Diamonds & Divas: A Murderous Fiasco takes audiences away from winter weather and abroad to the sunny provinces of the Cannes Film Festival, with the Rock Island venue the first professional theatre in the United States ever to produce this madcap comedy.

Dreamer Boy, the '80s-worshipping white-boy-R&B/“lo-fi hip-hop beats to relax and study to”-core project of Nashville-based singer Zach Taylor, plays a Moeller Nights concert at Davenport's Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel on February 20.

A two-time Blues Music Award winner playing Kavanaugh's Hilltop Bar & Grill on February 23, Chicago-based bass player Biscuit Miller and his ensemble The Mix headline the latest concert event co-sponsored by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, treating fans to an electrifying touring act that Downbeat magazine labelled “a real crowd-pleaser.”

A five-piece ensemble that, according to WSUM.org, “incorporates rock, bluegrass, jazz, and a little folk, creating nothing but an upbeat atmosphere,” the Chicago-based musicians of Old Shoe play Davenport's Redstone Room on February 23 in support of their most recent release Country Home, a compilation of 13 original tracks praised by GratefulWeb.com for the songs' ability to “paint a diverse landscape of American life.”

NYC-based brother-brother-sister trio Bailen lands at the Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel for a Moeller Nights concert on February 24. While the siblings’ natural synergy as vocalists makes for some thrilling group harmonies and trade-off leads, the band's collective sense of arrangement and production proves to be just as striking.