“Lucky Stiff,” the show opening this weekend and running through March 7 at Rock Island’s Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse, is new to area stages, but it’s not new to one cast member. Megan Mistretta did the show in summer 2024 (in a different part) at the Maples Repertory Theatre in Macon, Mo. “It’s really a […]
It isn’t often that you get to comment on the story of your own death, but we live in a time of unreality, rumor and the aptly and ironically named Artificial Intelligence, so, here we are, and here is Paula Sands, erstwhile retired local media personality, confirming that tales of her demise have been, to […]
WARNING: This article is satire and may not be acceptable for more sensitive readers. CORRECTION ARTICLE: Mockingbird on Main, home to avant garde Quad-Cities theater productions and run by area top hat and ascot aficionado and resident cult follower of Todd Cleary, Tristan “The Big Ragoo” Tapscott, has ceased operations after more than a decade. […]
WARNING: This article is satire and may not be acceptable for more sensitive readers. The District Theatre, home to avant garde Quad-Cities theater productions and run by area porkpie cap aficionado and resident dandy Tristan Tapscott, has ceased operations after more than a decade. “Actually, we’ve been out of operations for quite a while, why […]
Friends and family of Greg Hipskind are reeling from the sudden, shocking loss of the incredibly kind, gifted, giving Rock Island man who started and led QC Rock Academy and was the longtime backbone for the rock band Wicked Liz & The Bellyswirls. Hipskind, 49, died on Friday, Jan. 2 (from a sudden heart attack), […]
I’m sure it was purely coincidental, but it was illuminating to see two Moline theatrical productions about a strict father with a big brood of kids within about a month of each other. As soon as Joe Urbaitis (who played another proud, frustrated Papa in 2024’s “Fiddler on the Roof” at Music Guild) blew his […]
Long before the acclaimed black comedy-drama “Succession” ruled prestige TV (on HBO 2018-23), two other intense royal power struggles ruled stages and screens – Shakespeare’s “King Lear” (1606) and James Goldman’s “The Lion in Winter” (1966). Logan Roy (the scarily intimidating Brian Cox) of “Succession” wasn’t an actual king, but a media king, utterly ruthless, […]
The following guest column is from Ezra Sidran, who has done intensive investigative reporting on the City of Davenport, in particular regarding the collapse of the Davenport building downtown. In Greek mythology Cassandra was cursed, “to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In contemporary usage, her name is employed as a rhetorical device […]
Friday afternoon, the Rock Island High School boys soccer team will strive to even the score against Washington High School and make it to the Illinois state soccer finals. The Rocks previously lost to Washington, then ranked number one in the state, 3-0, but it was a closer game than the score would suggest, and […]
It’s ironic that Facebook began out of bitterness and spite, since that’s how it’s dying as well. As anyone who has watched the movie or read the book detailing the origin story of Facebook knows, it began out of a website created by Mark Zuckerberg after a breakup, essentially to get petty revenge on the […]
