With the crowned winner receiving a cash prize and a featured spot in the Capitol Theatre's Wickedest City Burlesque & Variety Fest on Saturday, April 18, the Wickedest Performer burlesque competition will be held at Davenport's Adler Theatre on April 16, the evening featuring electrifying artists from across the country, including Arizona, North Carolina, Seattle, Des Moines, and the Quad Cities.
Taking place in conjunction with the global project built around a private collection of 70 violins, viola, and cello connected to Jewish musicians before and during the Holocaust, the professional talents of Ballet Quad Cities will perform a Violins of Hope Iowa dance performance at Davenport's Figge Art Museum on April 16.
The recipient of the Chicago Public Library Foundation's 21st Century Award, and revered for 2014's The Book of Unknown Americans that the New York Times called "unfailingly well written and entertaining," Chicago-based author Cristina Henriquez participates in an April 16 virtual event hosted by Illinois Libraries Present, the writer sharing her thoughts on Voice, Culture, & Human Connection.
Continuing the area's month-long celebration of Davenport as the onetime “wickedest city in America,” Davenport's Capitol Theatre will host the Wickedest City Burlesque & Variety Fest Grand Showcase on April 18, this special event featuring a performance by local winner of the Wickedest Performer: A Burlesque Competition contest held at the Adler Theatre on April 16.
With the featured guest a German novelist, musician, and radio DJ currently living in pre-alpine Bavaria south of Munich, An Evening with Thomas Meinecke enjoys a special presentation at Davenport's German American Heritage Center on April 18, the author's books always fueled by music, including that of renowned Davenport musician Bix Beiderbecke.
Massachusetts-based Federal U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy suspended Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s (RFK Jr.) reduction of the CDC's Childhood Schedule of Vaccines from 17 to 11, including both Hepatitis A and B; Influenza; Rotavirus; Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV); and Meningococcal vaccines – all absurd inoculations that have no more conclusive science behind them than most of the other vaccines populating the Childhood Schedule on behalf of Big Pharma.
As published back in March about one of the Reader's longest and most dedicated team members who passed in Februray, Jay Strickland's Celebration of Life was held April 4, 2026 at the Reader offices in downtown Davenport, Iowa. Below we publish Jay's younger brother Eric's eulogy he shared with us on Saturday.
A YouGov poll conducted last month shows registered voters in Illinois overwhelmingly believe that the cost of renting and buying a home is a problem, think that there aren’t enough affordable homes for average folks and want the state Legislature to take action.
The trend in special elections around the country for the past several months has shown spiking Democratic voter turn-out and tanking Republican turn-out. And some preliminary primary election results from earlier this month show the same trend here.
One of the biggest stories to come out of election day was that several candidates with the most money came up short.
With the Richmond Times-Dispatch insisting that while the title "might suggest another church lady play ... the charitable sisters are more like the women of Steel Magnolias, with a few unexpected twists," author Bo Wilson's The Charitable Sisterhood of the Second Trinity Victory Church opens the 2026 season at Geneseo's Richmond Hill Barn Theatre with an area-debut April 16 through 26 run.
With Riverside Theatre's producing artistic director Adam Knight raving that “Emily Bohannon’s writing is one of the real pleasures of theatre today,” the playwright's stage piece The Fiancé enjoys a world-premiere April 16 through May 3 run at the Iowa City venue, Knight adding that Bohannon’s work "sheds light on characters seldom seen onstage, driven by a search for meaning in a vastness beyond the confines of New York, or even America.”
Boasting unforgettable show tunes including "Everything's Coming Up Roses," "Rose's Turn," "Together (Wherever We Go)," "If Mama Was Married," and "Let Me Entertain You," the musical classic Gypsy enjoys an April 17 through 19 run at the Coralville Center for the Arts, this production of Iowa City Community Theatre featuring timeless music by Jule Styne, a trenchant book by Arthur Laurents, and wickedly smart lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
With the solo show by former Iowa Poet Laureate Mary Swander described by The News' Cheryl Allen as "an artful mix of both seriousness and fun," Coop, a Story of An Amish Conscientious Objector enjoys a pair of area performances this spring, this little-known story of Mennonite men from Kalona, Iowa enjoying presentations at Davenport's German American Heritage Center on April 19 and Muscatine Community College on April 21.
With author Steve Yockey's work hailed by LA Weekly as a "series of haunted tales ... strung together with expert eeriness," the creepy vignettes of Very Still & Hard to See enjoy an April 23 through 26 staging at Bettendorf's Scott Community College, Stage Scene LA adding that Yockey's presentation is "the theatrical equivalent of Disneyland’s Space Mountain: i.e. equal parts excitement, terror, and glee."
With their special concert event performed by husband-and-wife duo Steven Lasiter and Jennifer Barnaba, both currently appearing in the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's mainstage musical Honky Tonk Angels, Cash, Carter, & Company: A Musical Tribute enjoys a one-night-only staging at the Rock Island theatre on April 16, the show boasting dozens of Johnny Cash's and June Carter's greatest hits along with songs from the era and an all-star band of talented musicians.
A revered Egyptian musician and composer who has founded such bands as Bikya, Alif, and The Dwarfs of East Agouza, multi-instrumentalist Maurice Louca headlines an April 16 concert event at Rock Island venue Rozz-Tox, the artist currently touring the country in support of his latest recording Fera.
Winners of two Loudwire Music Awards for Live Act of the Year, and one of the only groups to achieve top-five Billboard success on both the Hard Rock and Comedy charts, Steel Panther brings its unique blend of glam metal and hilarious lyrics back to East Moline's The Rust Belt on April 18, the California musicians appearing on their "Twenty Twenty $ex Tour" and lauded by Metal Sucks, which stated that "Steel Panther’s concept is genius" while their songwriting is "preposterously snappy – and relatable.”
Delivering simultaneously gritty and suave original music applied to an electric format, the Larry Keel’s Electric Larry Land headlines an April 18 concert at Davenport's Redstone Room, the outfit praised by C-ville Weekly for "doing for bluegrass what Hendrix did for rock, what Miles did for jazz – exploring the unchartered possibilities, defying the limitations of a deeply established musical form."
On April 18, guests of Davenport's Figge Art Museum are invited to experience powerful masterpieces paired with emotionally resonant works embodying remembrance and resilience, the concert event Up Close with Violins of Hope boasting the exquisite musicianship of Quad City Symphony Orchestra members Hillary Kingsley and Erik Rohde on violin, Nick Munagian on viola, and Hannah Holman on cello.
Prior to writer/director Kristoffer Borgli's transfixing, deeply uncomfortable A24 romance The Drama, I think you'd have to go back to 1992's The Crying Game to find a film that made you – by which I mean me – quite so antsy to learn its heavily promoted Big Secret.
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, April 9: Discussion of The Drama and Pizza Movie, previews of You, Me & Tuscany, Beast, and Faces of Death, and Dave makes an argument for an Oscar for Best Trailer, which he believes The Drama would win in a walk. Hard to argue.
Is anyone else exhausted, and continually upset, by this year's plethora of movies in which women get the crap viciously kicked out of them?
Having not read the Andy Weir novel on which their film is based, it's hard to tell if Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were the right directors for the science-fiction adventure Project Hail Mary, or – for the book's many admirers, and maybe a few of us newbies – the absolute wrong ones.
Now playing at area theaters.
An eclectic display of artwork created by students in the University of Dubuque’s Department of Digital Art and Design is on display at the University of Dubuque's Bisignano Art Gallery, with works by numerous student talents in The 2026 EDGE Show showcased through April 15.
With the works in the artist's current exhibition reflecting a busy life filled with art and visual experience, Living Collection: Works on Paper by Jason Eisner will be on display in St. Ambrose University's Morrissey Gallery through April 24, his latest pieces, as Eisner says, "found out of the corner of the eye and drawn while on break, sitting in the grass."
Culling through artists Lisa Lofgren's and Matt Erickson's archive or shared studios, shared conversations, and shared life over the last years, the exhibition Tongue + Groove will be on display in St. Ambrose University's Catich Gallery through April 24.
A wide range of disparate mediums and gorgeous artworks will be on display at the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery through April 27, with art lovers area-wide invited to view new metal and fiber sculpture by Amanda Langer, encaustics by Cindy Lesperance, and Japanese tiles by Nick Schroeder in the exhibit Langer, Lesperance, & Schroeder.
Nearly 200 works by gifted student artists will be on display at Rock Island's Quad City Arts Center through April 30 in the expansive 49th-Annual High School Art Invitational, a glorious celebration of local talent featuring the Quad Cities’ most promising artists expressing themselves through paintings, drawings, sculpture, paper, recycled materials, and film.
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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