Named “a true original” by the New York Times and “the first important dramatist of American public life since Arthur Miller” by Time magazine, Tony Award winner and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist David Henry Hwang serves as the latest guest in Quad City Arts Visiting Artist Series, his February 12 presentation at Augustana College profiling an extraordinary career in stage drama, musicals, operas, film, television, and, as a theatre professor at Columbia University, even academia.

Over a legendary career that produced nine symphonies, 16 string quartets, and 32 piano sonatas, Ludwig van Beethoven completed only one opera, and the story of its creation – and the immense toll it took on its composer – will be told in the German American Heritage Center's“Return into Your Prison Now!” The Long Battle for Beethoven's 'Fidelio,' a January 26 presentation by noted Quad Cities composer and Augustana College associate professor Dr. Jacob Bancks.

With this year's annual community event themed “Rise” – taken from the famed quote “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up” – Augustana College's 2020 Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration will be held in the college's Centennial Hall on January 18, its evening of art, poetry, dance, and music highlighted by a special visit from the young vocal talents of the Soul Children of Chicago.

One of the Quad Cities' most adored holiday traditions returns to Davenport's Adler Theatre on December 14 and 15 when the professional talents of Ballet Quad Cities perform Tchaikovsky's holiday dance classic The Nutcracker, an event boasting new choreography and staging by Artistic Director Courtney Lyon and Artistic Associate Emily Kate Long, live musical accompaniment by Orchestra Iowa, and the return of Domingo Rubio, who danced the title role in the company's recent presentation of Dracula Unleashed!