Chart-toppers, multi-platinum sellers, multiple-award winners, and more are set to electrify crowds as the grandstand entertainment for the July 31 through August 31 Mississippi Valley Fair, the eagerly awaited six-day festival boasting games, competitions, vendors, and concert sets by more than two dozen national and local acts.

Two eagerly awaited outdoor events are set to take place in downtown Davenport July 27 and 28, with the 47th Annual Street Fest energizing crowds on Friday and Saturday, and Saturday morning bringing with it the 44th Annual Quad-City Times Bix 7, the challenging summertime foot race that has captivated runners from all over the world.

Hidden treasures of the Quad Cities, and those who posses them, will be celebrated July 28 through 30 at the Putnam Museum & Science Center, the Davenport venue's interactive exhibition The Great Collectors & YOU allowing families to look at, learn about, and potentially trade personal artifacts encompassing everything from geodes to wood samples to priceless findings from famous Quad Cities families.

The life and times of one of Iowa's most celebrated sports heroes and evangelists will be explored in a July 28 presentation at the German American Heritage Center, the Davenport venue's Billy Sunday: The Baseball Evangelist acquainting guests with the two-time National League Pennant recipient who went on to preach roughly 20,000 sermons throughout his 40-year evangelical career.

A chart-topping country duo that scored the rare feat of having an album simultaneously debut at number 13 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and number 10 on its Top Rap Albums chart, Moonshine Bandits performs at Davenport's Redstone Room on August 2, treating audiences to the singular stylings that led SputnikMusic.com to state, “Fans of either hip-hop or country should be able to find something they like … since the two genres are made to complement each other so well.”

Two exhilarating bands – both of them originally hailing from Brooklyn, New York – share one weekend at the Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel when a pair of acclaimed national acts serve as Moeller Nights headliners: the indie-pop four-piece ensemble Frances Cone, which takes the Davenport stage on July 27, and Oneida, the psychedelic-rock quintet being showcased on July 29.

Composed of Dave “Dixie” Collins, Dave “Shep” Shepherd, and Travis Owen – the former two musicians having co-founded the group 20 years ago – the fired-up sludge-metal musicians of Weedeater perform a Rock Island Brewing Company concert on July 26, their most recent album Goliathan described by AngryMetalGuy.com as “an intoxicating examination of Southern culture and arguably the most tongue-in-cheek approximation of their sludgy, stoner sound thus far delivered.”

A real-life confession: I typically spend Sunday evenings at home watching Netflix, so spending it in Lincoln Park with Genesius Guild's production of The Merchant of Venice was a refreshing change. While it is known as one of William Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” and I would agree with that assessment, this performance was still a great way to forget thinking about Monday.

To download a PDF of the puzzle, click here.

A disappearing body, missing evidence, blood on a chair, and a pursuing investigation – so goes the spirited comedy BusyBody, written by Jack Popplewell and directed by Joe DePauw. Sunday’s matinée performance at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre was rife with lively slapstick and subtle humor, taking us into the world of Mrs. Piper (Jackie Skiles), a spunky office cleaning lady who has stumbled her way into a murder mystery.

It’s not often that I walk away from a show thinking about who I am as a person and how I can do better. Yet that is exactly what happened Friday night after the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's production of Clybourne Park, and director Alexander Richardson should be proud of his thought-provoking, darkly comedic production that demands more of its audience than the usual area-stage fare.

As the wind blew and the rain poured, I was concerned about making it to the current play at Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center without being swept away by the currents of water flooding the streets of Rock Island. Thankfully, though – and with added thanks to Cart to the Art driver John D'Aversa – even a severe thunderstorm couldn't keep me from the Mississippi Bend Players' opening-night production of The Glass Menagerie.

The first thing I noticed as I walked into Thursday's stunning, powerful, opening-night performance of the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's Cabaret was the temperature. As I glanced around looking for meat hooks, I realized that many of the theatre's more seasoned attendees had brought along sweaters, coats, and even blankets. But the chill in the air gave no indication of the show's eventual heat.

Right up front, let’s just stipulate that the recent appointment of state Representaive Christian Mitchell (D-Chicago) as the Democratic Party of Illinois’ interim executive director will not usher in an immediate sea-change.

You know a disaster movie is mired in cliché when a character, in the final minutes, is asked what we do now in the wake of so much destruction, and replies with an earnest, determined “Rebuild” – just like Dwayne Johnson did at the end of San Andreas. You know an action thriller is mired in cliché when a character, in the final minutes, finally takes a breath after so much breathless activity, and utters an earnest, plaintive “Let's go home” – just like Dwayne Johnson did at the end of Snitch.

In the final minutes of the new Skyscraper, a disaster-movie-cum-action-thriller starring Dwayne Johnson, you will hear both these lines.

Lauded by Paste magazine for their “emotional urgency” and by the Chicago Tribune for “the sheer force of the trio's aching, tight-knit harmonies,” the Americana and alt-country musicians of The Lone Bellow perform a July 19 Moeller Nights concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, demonstrating why NPR raved about “the group's earnest, ingratiating charm, dispensed via charisma-drenched songs that amble and soar.”

Nominated for five 2001 Tony Awards and currently the ninth-longest-running Broadway production in history, the internationally beloved musical Mamma Mia! enjoys its first extended Quad Cities run at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse July 18 through September 15, the show's collection of timeless tunes from the Swedish pop group ABBA leading the New York Post to call the experience “one of those nights when you sit back and let a nutty kind of joy just sweep over you.”

With ClashMusic.com praising the venue's headliner for her “honest, emotive songwriting,” “stirring, affecting work,” and “remarkable sense of depth,” Davenport's Redstone Room hosts a July 25 concert with alternative-folk and rock musician Maggie Koerner, whose talents inspired ItchySilk.com to rave, “There is something Janis Joplin about Koerner, whose ability to tear into songs is aural ecstasy brimming with controlled power.”

Five days of outdoor fun will be on hand when East Moline's Rock Island Country Fairgrounds hosts the annual Rock Island County Fair July 17 through 21, offering patrons mornings, afternoons, and evenings filled with carnival rides, games, food vendors, animal shows, racing tournaments, and exciting events scheduled for the nights' grandstand entertainment.

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