Since Brianna Hobbs, new program director at Davenport-based River Music Experience, joined the staff in early June, the nonprofit has kicked it into high gear – adding some more staff and getting ready for the return of regular Redstone Room concerts in late August. Hobbs, with executive director Tyson Danner, recently hired the following part-time staff: Valerie Davis – Smooth Jazz Coordinator. She previously ran Great Sounds Promotions, which was a nonprofit that presented the Smooth Jazz Series twice yearly, usually by renting the Redstone Room. “We’ve worked with Valerie for years,... Read More

Live theatre makes a triumphant return to First Presbyterian Church (1702 Iowa St., Davenport) with a long-awaited production of Frank Loesser’s classic musical “Guys and Dolls” on Friday, July 23 and Saturday, July 24. This production was originally scheduled for March 2020 and postponed as Covid-19 entered the Midwest just two weeks prior to opening night. After a series of further postponements, the church’s Performing Arts Series is pleased to produce the fully-staged musical with its original cast, crew and an orchestra. The cast relaunched rehearsals in June under strict mitigation... Read More

Richmond Hill Players will hold auditions for the last two shows of the 2021 season on Saturday, July 24 and Sunday, July 25 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Barn Theatre in Geneseo. The plays holding auditions are Clue: Onstage by Jonathan Lynn, directed by Dana Skiles, with the show running in mid-October; and Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some!) by John K. Alvarez, Michael Carleton and James FitzGerald, directed by Mike Skiles, with the show running in early December. Roles are available for up to 9-11 males and 6-8 females, ages ranging from 20’s to 60’s. Both directors note... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Augustana College is the first in the nation to partner with Degree Insurance and offer “income insurance” for new students who transfer to Augustana. This effort involves Degree Insurance’s flagship insurance product, American Dream Insurance (ADI), the private Rock Island school announced Tuesday. The Transfer Student Income Assurance Program is a pilot program in which 20 new transfer students are guaranteed the average income for their academic field for the first five years after graduating from Augustana. “This is yet another great reason for transfer students to... Read More

The Bishop Hill Creative Commons is hosting the second-annual Bishop Hill Book Fair on Saturday July 24th, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., where you can meet local authors in their natural habitat. Attendees can hear them speak and read from their recent work. Aspiring authors can attend workshops on cultivating the writer within. Books will be available for purchase, so people can collect autographs from their favorite local wordsmiths. The event will be held at the Commons at 309 N. Bishop Hill Road, Bishop Hill (about 20 miles south of Geneseo). Authors will represent a wide range of genres from children’s... Read More

After a brutal and long past 16 months, many major cultural organizations and venues in the Quad-Cities have been awarded badly-needed federal Covid relief, through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program of the Small Business Administration. As of July 19, $5.4 million has been approved in the region (out of $6.8 billion nationwide so far), including $2.3 million for the TaxSlayer Center, among the following grants: Figge Art Museum, Davenport — $368,499 Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, Davenport — $564,903 Putnam Museum & Science Center, Davenport — $163,843 Quad... Read More

The YWCA Quad Cities will host a public open house and ribbon cutting on Thursday, July 22. The ribbon cutting is at 4:30 p.m. and the open house will follow the ribbon cutting and last until 6 p.m. On October 1, 2019, the YWCA Quad Cities opened its first Iowa location in Davenport, at One River Place, 1225 E. River Drive, Suite 110, named the “Iowa Empowerment Center.” Due to the overwhelming response for the services the empowerment center provides, especially as a direct result of personal situations created as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the center experienced significant... Read More

I wanted to like the African-American drama “The Piano Lesson” at Playcrafters Barn Theatre much more than I did. It truly has all the ingredients to make something special, but Saturday night’s version appeared undercooked and not quite ready to serve as a fully satisfying meal. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play by August Wilson (1945-2005), who died of liver cancer at age 60, is part of the playwright’s epic “American Century Cycle” that documents the Black experience. Each of the 10 works reflects a different decade of the 20th century, and “The Piano Lesson” is set in 1936, as... Read More

Saturday in the Arts is a weekly feature covering a trend, subject, event or personality of local interest. It runs every Saturday morning on your site for the best entertainment and arts coverage in the area, QuadCities.com! I close my eyes and I can see The world that’s waiting up for me That I call my own Through the dark, through the door Through where no one’s been before But it feels like home They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy They can say, they can say I’ve lost my mind I don’t care, I don’t care, so call me crazy We can live in a world that we... Read More

Rozz-Tox, 2108 3rd Ave., Rock Island, will host its first indoor show since March 2020 on Thursday, Aug. 12 at 8 p.m., with the bands Thick Paint (Omaha) and Salsa Chest (Atlanta). Doors will open at 7 p.m., with show at 8 p.m., and $10 admission, limited to 50 people maximum. Rozz-Tox owner Benjamin Fawks said recently he waited until now to have an indoor concert “because it felt right — I just didn’t think it was responsible to have indoor gatherings during a pandemic. plus a lot of the artists that I book here were not touring for the same reason. “This is slowly changing and we have... Read More