Greatly anticipating Quad City Music Guild’s first, long-awaited entry into online entertainment (13 months into the Covid-19 pandemic), I both did and didn’t know what to expect from the new “On With the Show” cabaret. I knew it would be about an hour long; include several originally cast members of “The Secret Garden” (which has yet to be seen on the Guild stage); would be filmed from the Prospect Park theater, and include photos from past Guild productions. What I did not know that it would be so comprehensive (including so much detailed history about the beloved 72-year-old cultural... Read More

Eighteen months after staging their last full production, Quad City Music Guild will return in June, to perform a filmed version of “Monty Python’s Spamalot” with no in-person audience, to be streamed online three times. Originally scheduled for June 2020 (and postponed with the entire season due to Covid), the original Music Guild cast and crew will return to record the fully-staged version, and stream it June 11-12, 2021 at 7:30 p.m. and June 13 at 2 p.m. Ticket prices are yet to be determined; Guild already had sold over 500 tickets for last June’s show, including many season-ticket... Read More

Saturday In The Arts is a comprehensive weekly feature looking at a trend, personality, or major subject involving the Quad-Cities arts and entertainment scene. Many Quad City Music Guild (QCMG) board members haven’t acted on stage in more than a year, but they have been acting in the best interests of the community as they navigate the scary plot twists of a treacherous Covid landscape. Due to ongoing Covid safety protocols and continuing limitations on audience size, the QCMG board announced last month it would cancel the rescheduled April 2021 show. “The Secret Garden” was two weeks away... Read More

Mark McGinn’s love of the theater is literally in his blood. His father Jack (who died in 2000) started performing at Quad City Music Guild in Moline within two years of its founding in 1949, and was in dozens of shows. Mark, a 67-year-old Bettendorf resident, started with Guild at Prospect Park in 1972, playing clarinet for “Fiddler on the Roof,” and his first stage role was in 1976’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” (as one of the apostles). McGinn has since been involved in more than 70 other shows (including last summer as John Wilkes Booth in Black Box’s “Assassins” in Moline), mostly... Read More