One of the area's most eagerly anticipated sales events returns to Rock Island's QCCA Expo Center March 7 through 9, as Melting Pot Productions, Inc. presents this year's pre-spring 2025 Antique Spectacular Vintage Market Quad Cities, allowing hunters of vintage goods an all-weekend opportunity to shop for a wide range of quality antiques.
Its namesake lauded as "a smiling, exuberant performer with an open upper torso and fast-flying feet straight out of Irish step dancing," the touring talents of Darrah Carr Dance enjoy a residency as the latest guests in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artist series, their public performances including an intimate, abbreviated performance and artist talk at the LeClaire Community Library on March 12, and a riveting, full-length engagement at Davenport's Capitol Theatre on March 13.
On display through April 6 at Davenport's German American Heritage Center, the sensitive and touching exhibit With You I Am Myself / Mit Dir bin ich ich finds Israeli artist and photographer Oranit Ben Zimra portraying 12 pairs of friends from Norderstedt, Germany, in words and pictures, the collection forming a beautiful mosaic of German-Israeli friendships.
Sponsored in part by Arconic and developed by the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Putnam Museum & Science Center's new traveling exhibition Mystery of the Mayan Medallion will, through June 1, take visiting explorers through a multitude of archaeological dig sites, prompting them to gather clues and learn what happened to a group of lost scientists and a prized jade medallion.
With the exhibit inviting guests to learn stories of early immigrants and Quad City residents through historic artifacts, What's New? Recent Acquisitions to the Collection will be on display at Davenport's German American Heritage Center from February 15 through June 1, this showcase of interesting items culled over the last six years including machines, hand-crafted furniture, textiles, medical equipment, and personal items from early Davenport homes.
The latest report from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability shows that spending on four “core” state services in the governor’s proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget will be 9.1 percent less in real dollars than it was way back in Fiscal Year 2000. Those four core services are education, health-care, human services, and public safety.
Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch didn’t sound all that enthused about passing any new ethics reforms during an interview last week.
Can gold and silver, reinstated as circulating money, work, again? Would the answer differ if currency is or is not issued by private entities or central banks? Can economic booms and busts be avoided? What about financial or banking crises? Got the answer? As the Scottish say, “Haud yer wheesht!” (Meaning: to hold your tongue or shush.) History may beg to differ.
Mike Madigan knew for a very long time that the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI badly wanted to put his head on a spike. It was no secret. Everybody knew it. Madigan was investigated over and over again, but nothing ever came of it.
I highly respect and commend Kennedy with the spirit of and his ultimate objectives to defund war and to tame the FED & inflation; it requires a lot of courage (to threaten) to take on the military industrial complex and the banking system. I simply disagree on his approach, namely his lack of attention to legal tender gold and silver.
Despite this production being an excellent exhibition of both stagecraft and acting skills, Baskerville's comedy devolution did not grab me personally – though some audience members at Thursday's preview performance cheered.
Hailed by Show Biz Chicago as "an absolute gem of a show" and by Chicago on Stage as "destined to be a runaway hit," the Elvis Presley salute Heartbreak Hotel makes its Quad Cities debut with a March 12 through May 3 run at Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, this tune-filled smash also lauded by Chicago Stage and Screen as a show that "gives fascinating insight to the music industry."
Lauded by New York magazine as a show that "delivers with immense energy, a wicked sense of humor, and joyful inside-jokery," the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Mean Girls brings its national tour to Davenport's Adler Theatre on March 13, New York adding that this critically lauded smash based on the 2004 hit comedy is "hilarious, splashy, and unmistakably by Tina Fey."
Nominated for seven 2019 Tony Awards including Best Musical, to leading to a popular 2020 Netflix film starring Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman, the Broadway hit The Prom makes its area debut with a March 13 through 16 run at Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center, the show inspiring the New York Times to rave, "With its kinetic dancing, broad mugging, and belty anthems, it makes you believe in musical comedy again."
With PodSask hailing the stage entertainment as "a delightfully entertaining romp" that will "make you shake your head in disbelief and laugh out loud," Karen Zacarías' critically lauded comedy Native Gardens enjoys a February 28 through March 9 run at Iowa City's Riverside Theatre, Artburst Miami adding that "the play isn't theater of the absurd, but it's absurdly hilarious."
Boasting a repertoire bubbling over with hits including the heartfelt singalong "Heard It in a Love Song," the testifying "Fire on the Mountain," and the explosive testimony of "Ramblin,'" the genre-crossing rockers of The Marshall Tucker Band headline a March 7 concert event at Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center, the ensemble famed for incorporating blues, country and jazz into an eclectic sound, and helping establish the Southern rock genre in the early 1970s.
Held as part of the unique concert series held in Davenport's intimate and cozy Redstone Room, the March 7 7 Songwriter Sessions event will find guests treat to a seated evening of tunes hosted by David G. Smith, with additionally winning performances delivered by Mark Ridolfi and Carol Montag.
After 25 years, 12 albums, five Grammy Award nominations, and sold-out shows across the country, the blues and Southern-rock talents of the North Mississippi Allstars headline a March 8 concert at Davenport's Redstone Room, their recent recording Set Sail lauded by AllMusic as "easily the band's most mature, far-reaching, affirmative statement."
Touring in support of their 2024 album Not God, hailed by Flood magazine as "a wonderful rumination on the perceived limitations of songcraft," the indie-folk duo Finom headline a March 8 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the Chicago-based outfit formed in 2014 by singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist duo Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart.
A special musical presentation in the Davenport venue's popular "Kaffee und Kuchen" series, the German American Heritage Center's Friendship: Connections in New Lands will, on March 9, find gifted soprano Lily Arbisser and esteemed French pianist Dimitri Malignan performing a special recital inspired by Oranit Ben Zimra’s photography exhibition Mit dir bin ich ich / With You, I Am Myself.
So. Who won Best Actress?
I'm kidding … although the answer to that question did come later than I would've preferred.
I may not have understood all the machinations involved in bringing our aquatic hero back safely, but I believed that Last Breath's helmer and cast knew what they were doing, and in the end, that was far more important.
Going to the cineplex or staying in and streaming this weekend? Every Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m. you can listen to Mike Schulz dish on recent movie releases & talk smack about Hollywood celebs on Planet 93.9 FM with the fabulous Dave & Darren in the Morning team of Dave Levora and Darren Pitra. The morning crew previews upcoming releases, too.
Or you can check the Reader Web site and listen to their latest conversation by the warm glow of your electronic device. Never miss a pithy comment from these three scintillating pundits again.
Monday, March 3: Monday-morning bonus edition! The guys rap about last night's Oscars! So much to unpack!
No one could possibly argue that we need more horror movies these days. But I'd suggest that we could always stand to have more in which characters, at the moment of their passing, go splat.
Now playing at area theaters.
Notable and engaging works by 10 artists from Iowa and Illinois will be housed in the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery from March 5 through April 29, with Moline's airport showcasing floral paintings by Kathleen Rietz, landscape paintings by Evan Ventris, and 19 works by eight of the region’s finest woodturners.
Taking place in advance of their new exhibition's official opening, artists Cara and Diego Romero, the creative forced behind Days of Futures Past, will discuss their interrelated artistic practices and how they approach societal and cultural issues in their art, their March 6 conversation at the Figge Art Museum moderated by the Davenport venue's senior co-curator Vanessa Sage.
In celebration of National Quilters Week, the Figge Art Museum will showcase a number of colorful and hand-crafted functional artworks in the February 25 through March 7 Mississippi Valley Quilter's Guild Exhibition, with a special Appreciation Night for the exhibit's gifted artisans scheduled for February 27.
On display in the Figge Art Museum's third-floor gallery from March 8 through June 8, the arresting exhibit Cara & Diego Romero: Tales of Futures Past brings together artwork by acclaimed contemporary artists Cara Romero (Chemehuevi) and Diego Romero (Cochiti). This nationally traveling exhibition boasts 18 of Diego's thought-provoking pottery pieces and lithographs, 20 of Cara's evocative photographs, including from her Indigenous Futurism series, and a new collaborative piece created exclusively for this exhibition.
Featuring 26 beautiful paintings and drawings by a noted graduate of Stanford University and the California School of Fine Arts, the colorful exhibition Beth Van Hoesen: Prints from the Permanent Collection will be on display at the Muscatine Art Center through March 9, the collection's opening held on the top floor of the historic Musser-McColm mansion.
You'll get both the current official narrative challenge and What's Happenin' in the Quad Cities.
(Did you know we publish a new Real Astrology and RCR Crossword every week?)
Get the printed Reader edition mailed to you (or anyone you want) first-class for 12 months for $48.
$24 goes to postage and handling, $24 goes to keeping the doors open!
