Following the show's pandemic-caused delay, Davenport's Adler Theatre will finally be treating TLC fans to an evening with the star of the hit series Long Island Medium in Theresa Caputo Live!: The Experience, the September 23 event in which the touring celebrity will share personal stories about her life, explain how her gift works, and deliver healing messages to her audience members.
An eagerly awaited autumnal tradition will get the blood pumping on September 25 and 26, as the weekend brings with it the Moline TaxSlayer Center's Active Endeavors Health & Fitness Expo on September 25 followed by the annual Quad Cities Marathon, presented by TBK Bank, on September 26, the latter a Boston Marathon qualifier and the only such event in the country to incorporate five races, four cities, three brides, two states, and one island.
The early Midwestern life of American icon Walt Disney, and the globe-spanning empire he inspired, will be explored on September 25 in the Mockingbird on Main presentation Marceline: A Love Story, the Davenport venue's evening with Peter Whitehead, Creative Director of Missouri's Walt Disney Hometown Museum.
A live competition in which you can employ your '80s-movie knowledge to win cash prizes? Inconceivable! And yet, on September 28, guests at Bettendorf venue The Tangled Wood are invited to share their knowledge or simply watch the contest unfurl – as you wish – at The Princes Bride Trivia Night, a celebration of the timeless romantic-comedy fairytale and its stunning 34-year legacy.
On October 3, the incredible true story of a noted Prussian army general who became a heroic American army general will be explored at the German American Heritage Center, with the Davenport venue hosting a book discussion with acclaimed author David T. Dixon as he discusses his recent publication Radical Warrior: August Wilich's Journey from German Revolutionary to Union General.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Paul Schimpf has mostly followed Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment and avoided speaking ill of his Republican opponents. Until now. When a relative unknown named Jesse Sullivan jumped into the race earlier this month with a nearly $11 million out-of-state-funded campaign war-chest, state Senator Darren Bailey and businessperson Gary Rabine both called him a member of the San Francisco/Silicon Valley “élite” because that’s where his business was located and where much of his campaign money came from.
“This is what decentralized, collective leadership looks like,” declared House Speaker Chris Welch’s spokesperson Jaclyn Driscoll not long after the chamber approved the climate/energy bill on an unexpectedly lopsided 83-33 roll-call on September 9. The vote was without a doubt a spectacular victory, especially considering the Senate was not able to put together its own package that could pass both chambers and be signed into law.
Some interviews just write themselves. That rarity occurs when the interviewee is powerful and knowledgeable, relevant, compassionate, accomplished, fun, and most of all, a complete original. Hmmm … you mean someone like Jason Bermas, the independent journalist and documentary filmmaker? Exactly!
Please see the companion piece to this article, Have Our Freedoms Fallen Faster Than the Third Tower on 9/11? by Reader publisher Todd McGreevy. And, please see the Reader's coverage of Loose Change from 2006, The Secret Histories of 9/11.
We have a real innovator, fearless journalist, and talented filmmaker now living and producing content right here in the Quad Cities. His documentary films have been watched by tens of millions of people worldwide. He has over one hundred thousand followers on multiple social-media and content platforms. He's been interviewed by the New York Times, Vanity Fair and Esquire magazines. I'm talking about Jason Bermas, who is featured on the cover of this September edition. In light of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 travesty and the subsequent accelerated plunge America took into a police state, we would be remiss if we did not re-visit one of the creators of Loose Change and Fabled Enemies, the 9/11 documentary films first released from 2005 through 2009.
Julian Assange once said, “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security.” Assange isn’t in Belmarsh Prison for doing something wrong, but for doing something right. For trying to give the public information which will help them form a truth-based worldview so that they can make intelligent informed decisions about where they want to collectively steer society together.
I was delighted to catch Friday’s opening-night performance of the new musical comedy Disenchanted! at the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse. Directed by Corinne Johnson, with musical direction by Ron May, this show is about the other sides – more disgruntled sides – of the lives of fairytale characters made famous through the wonderful world of Walt Disney, with Snow White and her gang of dissatisfied co-princesses venting their frustrations as storybook/movie characters.
The timeless musical tale of boy, girl, and man-eating plant, the beloved and iconic stage sensation Little Shop of Horrors enjoys a September 24 through October 3 run at Moline's Spotlight Theatre, this Tony-nominated delight an early hit for its composers and eventual Oscar winners Howard Ashman and Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin) and, according to the New York Times, a show that remains “a genially gruesome classic.”
Lauded by Theatre in L.A. as “a touching and human comedy” about characters who “discover an unlikely but profound connection,” playwright Richard Alfieri's Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks enjoys an October 1 through 10 run at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre, the two-person show praised by the Los Angeles Times as a “crowd-pleasing combination of sass and sentiment.”
It may be fall, but it will also be several “Seasons of Love” at the Adler Theatre on October 3 when the Davenport venue hosts a 25th-anniversary touring stop – and one of the official “farewell performances” – for Rent, creator Jonathan Larson's iconic and beloved rock opera that earned four Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and the hearts of countless millions of stage fans the world over.
One of the best-selling and most beloved rock bands in history will be celebrated in a special concert event at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, with the Rock Island venue, on September 21, presenting Queen Flash: The Untimate Queen Tribute, a showcase to iconic singer Freddie Mercury and an ensemble whose unforgettable hits include “We Will Rock You,” “Somebody to Love,” and “We Are the Champions.”
Over the span of three days, two touring tributes to the chart-topping, Grammy-winning rockers of the Eagles (Hotel California, One of These Nights) will deliver three celebratory concerts at a pair of Illinois theatrical venues, with Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse hosting 7 Bridges: The Ultimate Eagles Tribute on September 23, and Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse presenting afternoon and evening performances of Heartache Tonight's Eagles Tribute Concert on September 25.
Delivering the organization's first public performance in 21 months, Chamber Music Quad Cities makes a welcome return with the September 25 program America: A Prophecy at Bettendorf's Asbury United Methodist Church – an evening boasting featured performances by violinist Charles Wetherbee and CMQC artistic directors and siblings Thomas and Gregory Sauer.
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 October 1, the band's most recent release Country Home a compilation of 13 original tracks that were praised by GratefulWeb.com for the songs' ability to “paint a diverse landscape of American life.”
Serving as the latest stop on the musician's “Hits Deep Tour,” Moline's TaxSlayer Center hosts an October 2 concert with the Grammy-winning, chart-topping TobyMac, whose extensive, critically acclaimed discography has made him one of the best-selling artists in contemporary-Christian and hip-hop history.
Clint Eastwood isn't necessarily bad here; at times, he's even enjoyable. But while I don't wish to be indelicate, there's no getting around the fact that, at the time of filming last year, Clint was 90, and he looks 90, and sounds 90, and moves 90 … and somehow, maddeningly, not one character in the film seems to notice.
A legendary cult comedy that wound up grossing more than 100 times its reported $400,000 budget and ranks as number 14 on Bravo's list of history's 100 funniest movies, 2004's deliriously deadpan riot Napoleon Dynamite enjoys its long-awaited screening at Davenport's Adler Theatre on September 25, the evening highlighted by a special in-person conversation with three of the film's stars: Jon Heder, Efren Ramirez, and Jon Cries.
Paul Schrader's hypnotic, sometimes thrillingly intense exploration of some of his favorite artistic themes – obsession, addiction, guilt, redemption – is such a singularly arresting achievement that it's easy to sail past its structural and performance flaws.
An introduction to the martial-arts master and eventual world-saver who debuted, in comic-book form, in the 1970s, Destin Daniel Cretton's MCU outing is prototypical origin-story world-building to its teeth, but not entirely unenjoyable.
Now playing at area theaters.
A gifted painter with two masters degrees from the University of Iowa, Franklin Evans will host a special, virtual studio tour for the Figge Art Museum on September 23, the artist's current installation at the Davenport venue – franklinsfootpaths – exploring elements of Evans' personal history in Iowa while also encouraging new ways of experiencing the Quad Cities museum.
The talents of a gifted painter with two masters degrees from the University of Iowa will be showcased in the latest exhibition at the Figge Art Museum, with the Davenport venue, through September 26, housing the exhibition Franklin Evans: Franklinsfootpaths, an installation that will explore elements of Evans' personal history in Iowa while also encouraging new ways of experiencing the Quad Cities museum.
Returning this fall to the Figge Art Museum's first-floor Gildehaus Gallery for an October 2 through January 2 exhibition, the latest offering in the Figgeo Video series will feature the work of acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Janet Biggs, whose video and performance works focus on extreme situations and experiences, drawing connections between physical and psychological terrains and tests of human limits.
Two exhibitions of beautiful, evocative, and occasionally comical black-and-white photographs byIowa artists are currently on display at the Quad City Arts Center, with the Rock Island venue, through October 8, treating patrons to the talents of Des Moines' Judith Eastborn and Bettendorf's Mike Leinhauser.
New works by a trio of Midwestern talents employing a trio of wildly different artistic mediums are currently on display in the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, with the Moline airport, through November 1, showcasing eye-catching photography by Mark Dierker of Dubuque, Iowa, works on paper by Jamie Foster of Naperville, Illinois, and ceramic wildlife sculpture by Deana Bada Maloney of Downers Grove, Illinois.
You'll get both the current official narrative challenge and What's Happenin' in the Quad Cities.
(Did you know we publish a new Amy Alkon Advice Goddess, Real Astrology, Red Meat cartoon and RCR Crossword every week?)
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