Don’t even think about it. Yeah, you, the fruitcake. Don’t EVEN think about it. Khalil’s Covid Christmas Special premieres December 20, and will be a Christmas Special for the ages — but no fruitcake will be spared in its wake! You saw what this guy can do with donuts, you really don’t want to miss this! Join your hosts, Khalil Hacker and Tristan Tapscott as they wrap up this dumpster fire year the only way they know how… with a Christmas special! Filled with surprise guest stars, a fruit cake eating contest and many laughs! Shot safely in the beautiful Renwick Mansion... Read More

This weekend, YouTube and the National Independent Venue Association are doing an awesome thing for local music venues nationwide, and I’m sure many of you have heard about the star-studded Save Our Stages Fest. It’s the kind of huge, publicity-grabbing event that gets a ton of attention with people in markets across the country. Which is a good thing, because it’s for a good cause, and it needs to get in front of a large group of people to make that positive impact. I do not begrudge that at all, and I wholeheartedly encourage people to check it out, and any other event of that... Read More

With so many people working from home and so many artists left to scramble during this interminable pandemic, it makes perfect sense that Rock Island-based actor Anthony Natarelli would do a play from home. Presented under his three-year-old $1 Producer Project, the irrepressible 26-year-old is offering the haunting, elegiac “Lonely Planet” (1993) by Steven Dietz, from his apartment above the Circa ’21 Speakeasy, livestreamed in three performances this weekend. The play’s content is also depressingly appropriate for our times. And though Natarelli has directed and co-stars in the intimate... Read More

Many people have gotten used to working from home during the seemingly endless period of quarantine. Anthony Natarelli is even bringing theater and improv comedy to his home. The irrepressible 26-year-old Rock Islander, who lives in an apartment above the Circa ’21 Speakeasy, 1818 3rd Ave., livestreamed an improv show there June 27, and later this month will act in a two-man play to be shown online as part of his $1 Producer Project. “We’re keeping it small casts,” Natarelli said recently. “The highest number of people that will ever be in here will be five people in the entire apartment.... Read More