The Quad Cities Astronomical Society and the Pleasant Valley High School Astronomy Club will co-host a meteor shower viewing party at Pleasant Valley Junior High School, at 3501 Wisconsin Street in Leclaire, on Saturday, August 7.  The viewing party will begin at dusk, approximately 8:30 p.m. The family-friendly event is free and open to the public.  Masks are optional at this outdoor event, but are encouraged in areas where social distancing cannot be maintained. During the viewing party, “shooting stars” originating from the annual Perseid meteor shower should be visible.  Though the number... Read More

Christina Myatt, drama director at Pleasant Valley High School in Bettendorf, continues to give her students acting options. Live theater has persisted during Covid, and their latest production – the small, intimate “Feiffer’s People” – was performed in front of audiences at PV last weekend, and a filmed version will be shown online at 7 p.m. Friday, March 5 and Saturday, March 6. “It went really well,” Myatt said Monday of the eight-member cast in PV’s huge auditorium, at 25-percent capacity maximum. “It’s a smaller cast, it allows us to work in a way, people aren’t on top... Read More

Saturday In The Arts is a weekly look at a personality, place, trend or topic of interest to the Quad-Cities. It runs every Saturday morning on your site for fun, free, local entertainment and features, QuadCities.com. Samantha Pauly, a 2008 graduate of Pleasant Valley High School in Bettendorf, was set to co-star in one of this year’s most anticipated new musicals on Broadway, “Six.” A flashy, feminist retelling of the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII (as a high-tech pop concert), the show played a month of previews in New York City and was to open March 12 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.... Read More

A prestigious national arts award is back under the baton of a Quad-Cities conductor. Nicolas Propes of LeClaire, who leads the Big River Brass Band, was announced this week as winner of the American Prize in conducting band/wind ensemble, community/schools division for 2019-20. “I was very honored to be selected,” Propes, a 40-year-old native of Ames, Iowa, said Friday. He applied last summer with a resume and videos of him leading the band. A whole host of judges from across the country review the applications and narrow them down to semi-finalists and finalists, he said. “It’s actually... Read More