For the first time in 10 years, ComedySportz (CSz) Quad Cities will host the world championship for the improvisational comedy group, and for the first time at Moline’s Spotlight Theatre (1800 Seventh Avenue, Moline IL).
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Delivering a blend of local history, environmental issues, education, entertainment, and fresh air, Davenport's River Action will present a series of outdoor presentations in the second month-plus of the annual Channel Cat Talks and Riverine Walks: weekly programs that, from July 8 through August 2, will address such topics as the music of local jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke, the Hauberg Estate, the Hennepin Canal, and even the Channel Cat series itself.
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Making its eagerly awaited July 10 through 12 return, the Walcott Truckers Jamboree at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop will, in its 45th year, showcase more than 175 exhibits, displays, games, cookouts, fireworks, local and national country and rock musicians, and even a beauty contest for trucks in a celebration of America's big rigs and those who drive them.
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Five days of outdoor fun will be on hand when East Moline's Rock Island Country Fairgrounds hosts the annual Rock Island County Fair July 15 through 19, offering patrons mornings, afternoons, and evenings filled with carnival rides, games, food vendors, animal shows, racing tournaments, 4-H events, live music performances, and exciting happenings scheduled for the nights' grandstand entertainment.
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Inviting guests to explores sites worldwide, share the beliefs of young worshippers, and view images, artifacts, and stories from more than two dozen sites and across various faiths, Davenport's Putnam Museum & Science Center, from June 14 through September 1, will host the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis's traveling exhibit Sacred Places, allowing patrons to explore the significance and insights provided by the locales of its title.
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No amount of media manipulation of election coverage, past or present, can restore the trust that has been lost relative to the security, fairness, and authenticity of U.S. elections, especially in the last decade. The election bureaucracy, in full cooperation with mainstream media, have maintained a pathological denial and suppression of widespread irregularities, including compelling supporting evidence, dooming its credibility going forward.
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The City of Rock Island is set to experience significant economic growth with the anticipated Milan Bottoms development that includes a new Nature's Treatment of Illinois (NTI) cannabis dispensary, truck stop, car wash and franchise restaurant. The 10-acre development is at the northwest corner of Interstate 280 and Highway 92, across from Bally's Casino. The new businesses to be constructed at these four previously industrial and commercially developed and occupied parcels has spurred considerable recognition and new found stewardship for the adjacent, surrounding, city-owned 500-plus acres, including an easement prohibiting development in the to be designated wetlands.
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The Friends of Milan Bottoms (FMB) are a group of local individuals and organizations who are against locating a truck stop and cannabis dispensary on a specific 10-acre site adjacent to vital wetlands. We are not against Puffing and Pumping. However, locating those businesses there will cause extreme noise and lighting that will destroy the largest Bald Eagle winter night roosting area in the Lower 48 States and jeopardize the long-term health of our area’s only real touch of wilderness, as well as pose a potential drastic risk for oil/gas contamination over the decades.
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The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is investigating an oil spill that entered the West Nishnabotna River from a truck stop near Avoca. The spill follows a complaint of discharged petroleum at the same Eagles Landing Flying J Truckstop from this spring that the DNR was still investigating and working to help clean up when the June 24 spill was observed.
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Members of Iowa’s congressional delegation love to cite the GAO. Since the dawn of DOGE, they have increasingly styled themselves as watchdogs against wasteful government spending. And in the process, they frequently turn to Government Accountability Office reports to criticize government spending. Why wouldn’t they? The GAO, along with inspectors general, are the ultimate pros at finding waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.
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Boasting warmth, humor, magic, and unforgettable songs including "A Spoonful of Sugar," "Chim Chim Cher-ee," "Let's Go Fly a Kite," "Step in Time," and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," an Oscar-winning family classic becomes a Tony-winning stage spectacular in the theatrical version of Mary Poppins, which will enjoy its long-awaited debut presentation at Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse July 9 through September 6.
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Hailed by the New York Times for being an "old-fashioned British style of farce with an elaborate plot and dizzy characters," the golf-themed comedy Ken Ludwig’s A Fox on the Fairway enjoys a July 10 through 20 run at Geneseo's Richmond Hill Barn Theatre, the praise continued by ChicagoCritic deeming it "perfect family fare" and the Chicago Sun-Times calling the play "a riot of a hilarious show."
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Even without benefit of a plot synopsis, you may think you know the chief inspiration for Alexander Richardson's new Barely There Theatre stage comedy To Leer at Lear. It's Shakespeare's timeless tragedy King Lear, right? Well, yes. But also no. Because as Richardson states during our recent interview, “The inspiration that's actually been in the back of my head as I was writing it, and that's apparent as we're rehearsing it now, is A Muppet Christmas Carol.”
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Nominated for seven 2019 Tony Awards including Best Musical, and the basis for 2020's popular Netflix film starring Meryl Streep, the Broadway hit The Prom enjoys a Quad City Music Guild staging at Moline's Prospect Park Auditorium July 11 through 20, this hilarious and touching 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."
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Praised by Variety magazine for its “charming score that suits the quirky material” and Time Out NY for its “expertly constructed and emotionally satisfying tale of self-liberation in the face of limited options,” the Broadway sensation Waitress enjoys a July 11 through 27 run at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse, serving up an evening of comedy, drama, romance, and Sara Bareilles compositions that made NBC New York rave, “It's easy as pie to fall for Waitress.”
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Performing in support of their 2024 release Shoot the Moon, and treating music lovers to what Glide magazine calls their “inexplicable way of giving old-time blues and jazz a fresh, contemporary feel,” the touring musicians of Davina & the Vagabonds headline a July 10 concert event at Davenport's Redstone Room, their latest album praised by KAXE radio as "catchy and hopeful with the group's usual dose of fun, while also a bit more up-front about the complexity of life."
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Headlining a July 10 evening at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the Heligoats – what NPR called “a strange name for a guy strumming a guitar, but oddly befitting someone who stuffs his songs with so many sideways ideas and observations” – delivers acoustic indie rock courtesy of singer/songwriter Chris Otepka, whom NPR declared “writes songs that are brainy in the best way: clever without straining for cuteness, wry but never smug.”
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Performing in support of their split EP with The Rumjacks that spawned the hit singles "Mud" and "Sorry," the Chicago-based Celtic-punk musicians of Flatfoot 56 return to the Quad Cities on July 11, their engagement at Davenport's Raccoon Motel sure to fill the Davenport venue with what IndieVision Music called “their rambunctious style that their fans have come to love.”
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Performing a special co-headlining engagement on July 11, the Americana and classic-rock outfits Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers and Miles Nielsen & the Rusted Hearts bring their combined talents to Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, the former's discography ranging from 1999's Honky Tonk Union to 2017's Live at the Belly Up, and the latter's OHBAHOY hailed by Maximum Volume Music as “such a staggeringly diverse 11 songs that you can only marvel at it.”
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An inductee in the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame and Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and cited as one of the most influential performers in Canadian rock music, Burton Cummings headlines a special solo engagement at Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Event Center, his July 12 concert treating fans to the award-winning stylings of the musician and songwriter best known for leading the Guess Who during that band's most successful period from 1965 to 1975.
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If the sure-to-be-boffo global box office for Jurassic World Rebirth can be trusted, we real-life humans apparently haven't gotten close to bored with dinosaurs. Not all of us anyway.
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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.
Thursday, July 3: Discussion of F1: The Movie and M3GAN 2.0; a review scoop on the debuting Jurassic World Rebirth; and an analysis of the New York Times' 100 best movies of the millennium voted on by critics, show-biz folk, and the public. No segment next week, so the guys will reunite - and chat about Superman - on July 17. Happy 4th of July!
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Why F1: The Movie debuted on June 27 rather than over Father's Day weekend is frankly baffling, given that I can't remember the last time a film was so objectively, overwhelmingly, a Dad Movie
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With 28 Years Later, we appear to be exiting the realm of realism and entering the land of the mythic, and I'm not sure that, inspiration-wise, trading George A, Romero for J.R.R. Tolkien is any kind of upgrade.
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Now playing at area theaters.
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Honoring 25 years of creativity, mentorship, and youth expression through Quad City Arts' Metro Arts Youth Apprenticeship Program, the 2025 Metro Arts Showcase will be held at Davenport's Figge Art Museum on July 15, the night celebrating the organization that has empowered young creatives through approximately 113 community-based projects including murals, mosaics, films, and more.
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With the exhibition made possible through generous funding from Art Bridges Foundation, and with KLJB FOX 18 serving as media sponsor, the fascinating collaborative exhibit CHAIN RE·AC·TION will be celebrated at Davenport's Figge Art Museum on July 17, with community partners, mural artists. and the public joining together in conjunction with the art experience's continuous cycle of inspiration, reflection, and response.
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On July 24, art collectors David and Sarojini Johnson will join artist Joseph Lappie at Davenport's Figge Art Museum for an incisive and engaging discussion on Fever Dreams: German Expressionism, exhibition featuring German prints. the arresting current exhibition featuring loans from the David and Sarojini Johnson Print Collection.
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Bringing together the compelling works of mother and daughter artists Sandra Louise Dyas and Jamie Elizabeth Hudrlik, the arresting exhibition Double Vision will be on display at Dubuque's Voices Studios through July 26, this showcase of talent a powerful visual dialogue that spans generations, mediums, and personal histories.
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A celebration of work completed by graduating seniors in the Department of Digital Art and Design, the DART '25 Senior Thesis Show will be on display at the University of Dubuque's Bisignano Art Gallery through August 1, the exhibit boasting a variety of pieces in illustration, animation, digital painting, motion graphics, and digital artwork, and displaying the wide range of skills students cultivated during their time at UD.
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