“Solitary Man: A Tribute to Neil Diamond" at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse -- December 31.
Friday, December 31, 9:15 p.m.
Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, 1828 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL
A beloved venue regular at Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse will take on the repertoire of one of history's most admired singer/songwriters in the December 31 concert event Solitary Man: A Tribute to Neil Diamond, a New Year's Eve party in which Hauskins and a team of gifted musicians treat audiences to adored smash hits including “America,” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” and “Sweet Caroline.”
To date, the 80-year-old Diamond has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had 10 chart-topping singles on Billboard's Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: "Cracklin' Rosie," "Song Sung Blue," "Longfellow Serenade," "I've Been This Way Before," "If You Know What I Mean," "Desirée," "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (Diamond's duet with Barbra Streisand), "America," "Yesterday's Songs," and "Heartlight," the latter inspired by Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In total, 38 songs by Diamond have been featured in the Top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, and his movie debut in 1980's The Jazz Singer earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.
Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. In 2019, his 1969 signature song "Sweet Caroline" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant," and Billboard ranked him as the 25th Greatest artist of all time. Diamond is also the only artist to score a top 20 hit in each decade since the origin of Billboard’s Adult Contemporary Chart, and over a career spanning five decades, he has scored 16 top-10 albums on Billboard charts.
Performing from Diamond's expansive repertoire in Circa '21's New Year's Eve concert, Brad Hauskins has been a member of the theatre's performing wait staff of Bootleggers since 1987, and has appeared in such venue productions as Fiddler on the Roof, Shear Madness, Grumpy Old Men: The Musical, and The Music Man. Currently, Hauskins can be seen in Circa '21's family musical Seussical, and he's the author of the dinner playhouse's holiday mainstage production Winter Wonderland.
The 9 p.m. Solitary Man: A Tribute to Neil Diamond concert on December 31 will be preceded by an 8 p.m. dinner, and the $98 admission also includes hors d'oeuvres, a souvenir photo, New Year's Eve party favors, and a champagne toast counting down to midnight. For more information and reservations, call (309)786-7733 extension 2 and visit Circa21.com.
