Winner of three 2009 Tony Awards and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the wildly acclaimed Broadway hit Next to Normal receives its debut staging at Moline's Black Box Theatre August 9 through 18, the New York Times raving that this pop/rock musical “throbs with an emotional intensity” and “is steeped in an inescapable, aching compassion for people crippled by pain.”

Those who love dinosaurs and all things Mesozoic will be in Putnam Museum paradise when the venue welcomes families to the August 10 through 12 celebration Dino Days – three afternoons of dinosaur-related information and entertainment that are sure to delight even those who can't distinguish a triceratops from a T. rex.

Delivering what Glide magazine called “a night of superb musicianship capable of time travel and otherworldliness,” acclaimed drummer Kofi Baker, son of legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker, brings his three-man ensemble to the Redstone Room on August 10, his Kofi Baker's Psychedelic Trip trio reinventing the music of Cream and inspiring MusicEnthusiast.net to rave, “Across the board, these guys nail the sound and the feel without – and this is important – seeming like some Las Vegas tribute band. They're the real deal.”

Headlining a two-day music festival at the Codfish Hollow Barn, the South Carolina-based ensemble SUSTO brings its Americana and alt-country stylings to Maquoketa on August 10 and 11, the artists' Fine 2Day Fest demonstrating the skills that led SoundingBoardBlog.com to rave, “The band brings a level of passion and thoughtfulness to their performance, and the way they play engulfs your attention and resonates a sense of authenticity. You can see how this is one of those bands who truly love to play music.”

Saturday night's performance of Thesmophoriazusae was a bit like the talent show at the end of summer camp. Featuring a lot of inside jokes, jabs at society as a whole, and many familiar faces, director Bob Hanske’s production serves as the wacky capstone to Genesius Guild’s summer of entertainment in Lincoln Park.

Lord knows we don't need any more awards for movies and the people who make them. But after watching the latest sequel to Mission: Impossible – hell, after watching its first 10 minutes – I was actively wishing that someone would at least fashion an oversize blue ribbon, or maybe an Edible Arrangements bouquet of some sort, in recognition of “Best Pre-Opening-Credits Sequence.” Because the one that writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and company have devised for Mission: Impossible – Fallout is practically a movie of its own, and an awfully good one.

Concluding their 2018 season with a world premiere at Augustana College, the Mississippi Bend Players will, from August 3 through 12, stage a collaboration between an Emmy-nominated writer/producer and a Broadway-veteran director: the pitfalls-of-show-business comedy Beginner's Luck, written by noted sitcom scribe P.J. Lasker (The Golden Girls, Barney Miller) and directed by the Great White Way's Philip Wm. McKinley (Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, The Boy from Oz).

On display from August 4 through September 17, a very special summertime exhibition will showcase the collaborative efforts of the Figge Art Museum, the nationwide program Students Rebuild, and Davenport Community Schools' Creative Arts Academy in Students Rebuild: Facing Difference, a beautiful and moving collection of student self-portraits from around the globe and here in the Quad Cities.