Words and art are my business – as tools, objects of affection, contemplation and worship, ways to make sense and meaning of life – as they are for “Red,” the brilliant, caustic, literate John Logan play given a fantastic, thrilling new production by Mississippi Bend Players at Augustana College. Over an emotional 90-minute rollercoaster — […]
“The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” is streaming on HBO Max Much like life, franchises find a way. Sooner or later, they realize they can’t keep doing the same thing over and over, and they need to evolve. The Fast and the Furious began as a charmingly low rent ripoff of Point Break. […]
So there I am driving home with my sausage pizza from Gunchies Davenport. I’m jamming out to NWA rolling in my 2007 Honda Minivan, Pepto Bismol for my tummy ache that’s coming from my eventual encounter with too much pizza and dog treats for my husky Abrodog Lincoln, all in my reusable Hyvee bag #savetheearth […]
Tonight I got two phone numbers. I wasn’t trying for either, however I guess I still have game. Not many BBQ ribs around here are suck-the-meat-off-the-bone good. But hot damn Smokey’s Country Diner in East Moline is a winner. There I was minding my own business, gnawing every morsel of deliciousness off the bone when […]
Sixteen months after the Spotlight Theatre staged its last major musical, it’s provided the pitch-perfect, post-pandemic production – “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” Simple, sweet, nostalgic – both exuberantly childlike and loaded with the weight of the world on its young shoulders – the beloved 1967 musical based on the classic “Peanuts” characters has […]
I really wanted to enjoy Quad-City Music Guild’s first complete musical in a year and a half, “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” which is available to be streamed online June 11 and 12 at 7:30 p.m., and June 13 at 2 p.m. But due more to its supremely silly, groan-inducing, seemingly unending source material than its eminently […]
Lora Adams. Wendy Czekalski. Matt Walsh. You already want a ticket, don’t you? You should. Go. Reserve those tickets. I’ll wait. Got ‘em? Great! Let’s talk! ‘Hate Mail.’ It’s You’ve Got Mail gone wrong, gone filthy and gone 2020. You need to add it to your weekend plans. You’ll thank me later. Written by Bill […]
“Plan B” is streaming on Hulu A while back, Toni Morrison said, “All good art is political.” I think that’s about right, yet I’d take it a step further and say that all art is political — full stop. Does that mean that every movie you see and every book you read has an overt […]
If you’ve ever met Don Faust you’d know he’s one of the nicest, funniest and most positive blokes on this planet. So it comes with some shock and awe that this not-quite-but-sort-of-autobiographical play dives into a not-so-cheery part of his life that under some circumstances would disavow a gleeful demeanor. Leave it to Faust to […]
While I had been inside Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse a few times over the past year (for interviews and an audition), I had not been back before Wednesday to see an actual stage show since January 2020. Like a certain Dorothy once said, “There’s no place like home.” And even with what seems like the […]
