From August 7 through 9, an eagerly awaited summertime tradition returns both on and in between the LeClaire and Port Byron Levees, as the 2025 Great River Tug Fest delivers outdoor family fun with carnival attractions, live music, arts and crafts vendors, fireworks displays, and the hotly anticipated tug-of-war over the Mississippi River.
Two hundred years ago, pioneers created Henry County, and in honor of this occasion, the Bishop Hill Chautauqua, on August 9, will look back at the people who impacted Henry County history, the events at the Bishop Hill Gazebo including storytellers, historians, and musicians performing first-person portrayals of famous historical figures.
With the program offered as part of the Davenport venue's popular "Kaffee und Kuchen" series, Iowa City-based artists, collectors, and educators David and Sarojini Johnson engage in an August 10 gallery talk on their current German American Heritage Center exhibit, the couple having spent decades sharing and practicing the art of printmaking, each with their own unique vision and inspiration.
Taking place in three cities, two states, and more than 40 area locales, the popular summertime traveling festival Alternating Currents returns to Davenport, Bettendorf, and Rock Island from August 14 through 17 – a Quad Cities celebration of music, film, comedy, and the arts boasting more than 200 music performances, comedy sets, film screenings, local art displays, and family activities.
With the Midwest Writing Center's literary magazine THE ATLAS celebrating the publication of its 20th volume, a release party, open-mic night, and DJ set honoring the Young Emerging Writers (YEW) program will be held at Rock Island venue Rozz-Tox on August 14, the evening boasting readings from YEW alumni and copies of new and back issues of THE ATLAS available for purchase.
According to the 2020 Census, Cook County is 40-percent white, 26-percent Latino, 22-percent Black, and 8-percent Asian. Chicago is 21 percent of the state’s population. But the statewide ticket recently endorsed by the Cook County Democratic Party is overwhelmingly made up of white Chicagoans (JB Pritzker, Alexi Giannoulias, Mike Frerichs, and Margaret Croke), with two Black Chicagoans (Lieutenant Governor candidate Christian Mitchell and Kwame Raoul) and no Latinos or Asian Americans.
The Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois and the Regional Transportation Authority agree that a change to Illinois’ sales-tax law will net the RTA an additional $150 million this year and another $225 million next year. That money will drastically reduce the impact of the looming $770 million “fiscal cliff,” which begins in January.
Christian Mitchell has had strong detractors ever since Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle elevated the young Black man out of obscurity and backed him for the Illinois House in 2012. Preckwinkle chose her trusted aide Mitchell over appointed Representative Kimberly du Buclet (D-Chicago). Preckwinkle’s move upset a lot of people in that part of the world because the du Buclet family’s local influence had been strong for decades and Mitchell was not a born South Sider.
The costs to Illinois’ government because of the new Republican congressional budget-reconciliation law will be steep. However, the state has some time to prepare itself, and possible Democratic gains in the U.S. House and Senate next year might be able to reverse or mitigate some of the steepest cuts to food-security and health-care programs before the vast majority of them take effect after the 2026 elections.
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.
Regarded by many, including New York Times critic Ben Brantley, as potentially the greatest of all American musicals, the legendary, Tony-winning Gypsy enjoys an August 8 through 17 Quad City Music Guild staging at Moline's Prospect Payk Auditorium, the Times' Frank Rich adding that "Gypsy is nothing if not Broadway's own brassy, unlikely answer to King Lear."
With The Daily Beast hailing the show as "a two-hour explosion of physical comedy, malapropisms, and knockabout satire," the Tony-winning slapstick farce The Play That Goes Wrong enjoys an August 8 through 17 run at Moline's Spotlight Theatre, this crowd favorite sure to demonstrate why the New York Times deemed the stage smash "one of those breakneck exercises in idiocy that make you laugh 'til you cry."
A lauded musical in which, according to The Sound on Stage, "the songs hit every band of the emotional spectrum," composer Adam Gwon's Ordinary Days enjoys its Quad Cities debut at Moline's Black Box Theatre from August 8 through 17, StageLeft.nyc adding that the show is a "sweet, quietly extraordinary musical that cleanses the soul, lifts the spirit, and reminds you what you love about New York."
Julie Funk is both excited and terrified to take on one of the most iconic roles in musical theatre. The passionate 50-year-old Davenport mom is playing the monstrous Mama Rose in Quad City Music Guild's Gypsy, running August 8 through 17 at Moline's Prospect Park Auditorium (1584 34th Avenue).
The horrifying story told in The Diary of Anne Frank is now being lovingly presented at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre, directed by accomplished actor Elle Winchester.
With her most recent recording Modern Age hailed by Glide magazine as "a deeply nostalgic, sometimes melancholy, but ultimately charmingly sweet album," Nashville-based singer/songwriter Jill Andrews headlines an August 8 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the artist's 2023 release also inspiring Americana Highways to rave, "All of it makes us smile, tear up, and think of days gone by, all at once."
A five-time Grammy Award winner who was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and earned the Americana Music Awards Lifetime Achievement for Performance, blues-rock legend Robert Cray brings his band's national tour to Davenport's Capitol Theatre on August 9, the artist's ensemble having previously shared stages with the iconic likes of Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, The Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, and Eric Clapton.
With their repertoire boasting six studio albums, two live albums (including last year's Live at Riverside), five EPs, 22 singles, and 28 music videos, the heavy-metal artists of Ice Nine Kills play East Moline venue The Rust Belt on August 9, their most recent recording The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood a Billboard smash and the highest-charting album in the band's history.
An inventive duo that explores the outer edges of sound through improvisation and experimental music, harpist Stephan Haluska and percussionist Adam Shead will blend their talents in an August 9 concert event at Rock Island venue Rozz-Tox, their collaboration drawing on a shared commitment to sonic exploration and contemporary composition, creating performances as meditative as they are unpredictable.
On August 14, the chart-topping, Grammy-winning rockers of the Eagles will be celebrated when Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse hosts the return of 7 Bridges: The Ultimate Eagles Tribute, an evening of beloved, iconic hits sure to include such chart-toppers as "Best of My Love," "One of These Nights," "Heartache Tonight," and "Hotel California."
Alison Brie's and Dave Franco's arguably inappropriate chemistry might make this supremely clever, enjoyably gross body-horror comedy stronger than it would've been without them, because even when their characters are at their lowest communal ebb, you sense that these two will always fundamentally stick with one another. And stick with one another they do. They very much do.
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, August 7: Previews of Freakier Friday, Weapons, and Sketch, and discussion of The Bad Guys 2 and The Naked Gun, with a primer on why you should ma-a-a-aybe think twice about bringing your mother or father-in-law to that latter title.
By the finale, nearly everything of early interest has succumbed to the same ol' visually indistinct, destruction-of-the-universe meaninglessness, with the added hangup of the action being almost insultingly stupid.
Presented in conjunction with the venue's current exhibition of the same title (with an added exclamation point), director Tom Hooper's arguably legendary screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats enjoys an August 14 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, with kitty costumes encouraged for this free event in the Thursdays at the Figge series.
Now playing at area theaters.
Art you can view and art you can wear (though not during its local showcase) will be celebrated at the Quad City Arts Center gallery through August 8, with the Rock Island venue proud to host the collective exhibition Bales & Pappageorge: an arresting showcase of sculptural fashion by Judy Bales and fiber wall pieces by Louise Pappageorge.
With Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss known for their witty explorations of human nature, the duo's acclaimed 1987 video The Way Things Go will be screened in the Figge Art Museum's Lewis Gallery from August 9 through February 8, this playful spectacle revered for transforming destruction into art, and embracing absurdity and unpredictability as essential parts of life.
A trio of the Quad Cities' favorite artists will blend their talents for the latest exhibition at Rock Island's Quad City Arts Center, with Wayfinding, from August 14 through October, showcasing ceramic sculpture by Lori Roderick, woven tapestries by Rowen Schussheim-Anderson, and abstract paintings by Zaiga Minka Thorson.
At the Rock Island Public Library's Watts-Midtown Branch from August 15 through 30, works by three gifted area visual artists will be displayed in the exhibition Image & Idea, an arresting showcase for the works of Tony Seabolt, Lisa Mahar, and Jeff Ignatius.
Run by Quad City Arts and open to youth ages 15 to 21, Metro Arts is a paid, five-week summer apprenticeship in which participants work side by side with professional artists on real, public-facing projects. From murals and mosaics to poetry, live performances, and digital storytelling, apprentices shape and improve the creative landscape of the Quad Cities while gaining invaluable professional experience.
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?)
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