An eagerly awaited annual event rides, jumps, and spins into Moline's TaxSlayer Center on April 27 and 28 as the Moline venue hosts Monster Jam 2019, bringing a new level of high-flying, four-wheel excitement to the entire family with racing, two-wheel skills, donuts, and freestyle competitions.
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This feature collects articles published online by Quad Cities-area media outlets and by CapitolFax.com and the state-politics sections of the Des Moines Register and the State Journal-Register.
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Race is an issue that, in daily life, can feel like a daunting one to approach. Yet Davenport's Putnam Museum & Science Center is addressing the subject head-on in its new, interactive, and accessible traveling exhibition RACE: Are We So Different? Open to museum guests from January 26 through June 2, RACE aims to help visitors of all ages better understand the origins and manifestations of race and racism in everyday life by investigating race and challenging its misconceptions through the framework of science. And as Putnam President and CEO Kim Findlay says, it's an exhibit designed “to explore race through history, science, and culture – which happen to be the three things the Putnam focuses on.”
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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.
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Court-ing fans in their annual visit to Moline, the electrifying athletes of the Harlem Globetrotters bring their spectacular touring event to the TaxSlayer Center on April 13, thrilling the crowd with phenomenal basketball action and comic high jinks courtesy of a star-studded roster featuring Big Easy Lofton, Ant Atkinson, Hi-Lite Bruton, Thunder Law, Bull Bullard, and Cheese Chisholm.
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From the looks of things, the fine print of Governor JB Pritzker's most important legislative priorities should start becoming public not long after state legislators return from spring break on Tuesday April 30.
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On February 7, U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) released the text of a joint resolution calling for a “Green New Deal.”
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Senator Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake) spent more than a year holding hearings and overseeing negotiations which eventually produced SB1829 – a massive omnibus bill on sexual harassment.
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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.
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Freshman Representative Terra Costa Howard (D-Glen Ellyn) was reportedly none too pleased when Think Big Illinois began running TV ads in her district.
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With DC Theatre Scene calling the show “a wonderfully fun production” that's “clever enough to charm all ages,” Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse opens its 2016 season of high-spirited family musicals with Junie B. Jones Is Not a Crook, an adaptation of Barbara Park's beloved children's book that the Maryland Theatre Guide described as “almost too much fun to be as heartfelt as it is.”
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A legitimate musical-theatre classic that won both the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying wraps up Augustana College's 2018-19 mainstage theatre season from April 26 through May 5, treating audiences to a joyously biting, tune-filled delight that the New York Times called “crafty, conniving, sneaky, cynical, irreverent, impertinent, sly, malicious, and lovely – just lovely.”
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One of children's literature's most beloved tales enjoys a world-premiere QC Theatre Workshop presentation May 3 through 19, with the Davenport venue housing a debuting stage adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's literary classic The Little Prince – a family-themed presentation incorporating comedy, music, dance, and puppetry written by the company's Artistic Director Aaron Randolph III.
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Don’t let the title of the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Grumpy Old Men: The Musical fool you. I was expecting much yelling at young-'uns and kvetching over chessboards. It’s actually a colorful, fast-paced feast containing no young-'uns (but, yes, one chessboard).
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A half-dozen wickedly funny and proudly confrontational comedies by one of America's most revered playwrights will enjoy Scott Community College stagings from April 12 through 20, with Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You & Other Short Plays showcasing the sardonic wit and sharp intelligence of author Christopher Durang, a Tony Award winner for his 2012 smash Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike.
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Delivering what the Associated Press calls “the next best thing to seeing the Beatles” and what the Toronto Star deems “a fun-filled family crowd-pleaser,” the gifted musicians and iconic impersonators of Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles bring their touring production to Moline's TaxSlayer Center on April 24, intoxicating crowds with their newest stage spectacular The Best of Abbey Road Live!
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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.”
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Appearing locally a mere four days after the release of their latest album – a fully re-recorded, remixed, and remastered 10-year-anniversary edition of their Against the Grain debut – the Canadian post-grunge rockers of The Veer Union play Davenport's Redstone Room on April 25, their 2018 album Decade II: Rock Acoustic inspiring XSRock.com to state, “If Decade II doesn't get your blood pumping, there is a good chance that you might not even be alive.”
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The invigorating sounds of modern and classical jazz will be on beautiful display on April 25 in the 27th Annual Black Hawk College Jazz Festival, an evening of sensational student talent augmented by the performances of Detroit-based jazz pianist (and former BHC instructor) Corey Kendrick and the University of Northern Iowa's trombone professor Dr. Anthony Williams.
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Modern folk auteur and Moeller Nights headliner Sam Amidon lands at the Triple Crown Whiskey Bar & Raccoon Motel on April 26.
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The curse of La Llorona, as explained in the fittingly titled The Curse of La Llorona, is a piece of Latin American folklore too juicy to be employed merely as a bridge to yet another feature starring that nasty porcelain doll Annabelle. Alas, director Michael Chaves' supernatural horror film is being marketed as the latest in the “Conjuring Universe” that entails two Conjurings (with a third heading our way next year), two Annabelles (with a third heading our way this June), and last fall's dreary The Nun (with a second, and inevitable third, TBA). Every cinematic series, it seems, has to be capitalized Universe now, but am I alone in wishing that this latest entry had functioned merely as a self-contained planet?
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Instead of a sweet, 13-year-old white boy waking to find himself in his 30-something body, writer/director Tina Gordon's lighthearted take on Big gives us a rude, 30-something black woman waking to find herself reverted to her gawky 13-year-old frame. In other words, Little is about as familiar-yet-slightly-different as high-concept Hollywood offerings get. With its leads portrayed by Regina Hall, Issa Rae, and the remarkable Marsai Martin, it's also about as enjoyable as they get – though you can't help wishing there were even more here to enjoy.
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Those trailers suggested Big in shiny red Spandex, and the trailers didn't lie. Director David F. Sandberg's comic-book outing, however, isn't reminiscent of the Tom Hanks comedy merely because it's about a young teen magically transformed into an adult. It's also fast and funny and clever and touching in the manner of Big – so much so that all that's really missing is the sight of Robert Loggia on a giant walking piano. And the giant walking piano actually makes an appearance.
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Astoundingly, Disney's animated Dumbo from 1941 clocks in at 64 minutes, and my latest quadruple feature would no doubt start on a cheerier note if director Tim Burton's live-action remake also lasted just over an hour. Alas, this Dumbo is closer to two, and frequently feels more like four.
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It's kind of like what you'd get if a home-invasion thriller mated with a zombie-apocalypse thriller and gave birth to a subterranean Matrix, with Sigmund Freud and Lewis Carroll serving as godparents and Darren Aronofsky performing the baptism.
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Rich oils and paints, vibrant colors, and four-legged majesty will be on display at the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy from April 27 through May 30, with the Bettendorf venue hosting a showcase of numerous works by Texas artist Laurie Justus Pace in an equine celebration fittingly titled HorsePower.
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Beautiful and evocative works by a pair of natural-landscape painters – one a native Canadian, one hailing from Moline – will adorn the walls of the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy from March 30 through April 26, with the Bettendorf venue inviting us all to “Think spring!” in the new exhibition Prairie Light: Pam Ohnemus & Cynthia Starkweather-Nelson.
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Foxes in the henhouse. Elephants in the room. Cats in the cradle. And from January 26 through April 28, there will be Animals in the Museum, as Davenport's Figge Art Museum showcases works in all artistic mediums devoted to the world's furry, feathered, finned, and four-legged friends.
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A variety of gorgeous works in wood, watercolors, markers, and acrylics will be on view from March 2 through April 30 at the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, with the airport housing works by a trio of Midwestern artists: Todd Hughes of Grand Mound, Iowa; Julie Nelson of Quincy, Illinois; and Douglas Rutzen of Blandinsville, Illinois.
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Works by dozens of the area's most gifted young artists are currently on display at Rock Island's Quad City Arts Center Gallery, with the 42nd Annual High School Art Invitational, through May 2, showcasing an assemblage of paintings, drawings, sculpture, metals, ceramics, photography, and film from newly award-winning student talents.
