Jonathan Turner’s favorite 2023 arts stories
2023 was a tumultuous, drama-filled year on the world, national and local stages.
And as the chief arts and culture reporter for Our Quad Cities, I get to document much of that drama on QC stages. Fortunately, I focus on presenting the positive news and happenings of our bountiful scene spanning live music, theater, dance, art, and film.
My favorite stories of the year stretched the gamut, and occasionally overlapped with my top-read stories online. Our readers deemed these my biggest arts-related hits (according to page views):
Here is my personal Top 10 list of favorite arts stories from 2023, in chronological order:
This year marked a thrilling merger of my personal and professional lives, as I finally got to play for not one, but two iconic musicals at Quad City Music Guild (“Rent” in the spring and “Sweeney Todd” in the fall).
The dream was magnified last March during a dress rehearsal, when we were blessed with the presence of someone closely connected to the creator of the Pulitzer-winning “Rent.”
A 64-year-old native of Rock Island, Janet Charleston watched a rehearsal of Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” with her father March 17, at Music Guild in Moline. She dated Larson from 1989 to 1993 and then 1994 until his death in the early morning hours of Jan. 25, 1996 (at age 35 of an undiagnosed aortic aneurysm), the day of its first off-Broadway preview in New York.
Charleston related how she’d seen the show so many times, but never in her hometown. We were honored to hear how much it moved her, and she shared her time speaking with the cast and crew in an emotional session on stage that unforgettable night. That lit the fire for us to bring much-needed “Seasons of Love” to the Prospect Park stage the following two weekends.
Literally in the center of the Quad Cities, Vibrant Arena at The MARK has played a central role in the revitalization of the area and marked its 30th anniversary in 2023. As a longtime QC journalist, I’ve had the pleasure to track its growth and changes over 28 of those years.
Not only did the arena (1201 River Drive, Moline) celebrate 30 years (Neil Diamond famously opened the place May 28-29, 1993 with sold-out shows that remain the biggest attendance there ever), the facility had its most profitable year ever in 2022-23 and its 10-year, $4-million naming rights deal with Vibrant Credit Union means it can continue to make more updates to the building that’s been a cherished part of so many lives over three decades.
One of my favorite pieces above was sharing blissful memories of those first opening concerts from local fans.
The closest I have gotten to a Pulitzer Prize – the most prestigious award in journalism – is attending classes in the World Room at Columbia University’s Journalism School, where they are announced.
The next closest was this past spring, when I was two degrees from a Pulitzer, getting to interview QC Symphony Orchestra conductor Mark Russell Smith after one of his closest friends learned he earned the 2023 prize for music.
I also had previously spoke with the composer, Michael Abels (most famous for his score to Jordan Peele’s film “Get Out”), who’s been friends with Smith since they were kids in Phoenix. It was “Get Out” that brought the composer to the attention of singer-songwriter Rhiannon Giddens, with whom Abels collaborated on both their first opera, “Omar,” which brought them the Pulitzer.
The biggest QC news story of the year (which garnered international attention) was undoubtedly the partial building collapse of 324 Main St., Davenport, on May 28, which killed three men, and was later entirely demolished.
It also forced the dislocation of one of my favorite theaters in the area, The Mockingbird on Main, which opened less than two years prior on the ground floor of the building across from the Davenport main library. Stunningly, the passionate Mockingbird proved the show literally must go on, as a new production of its planned “The Glass Menagerie” opened at the Black Hawk College theater in Moline this past July and ran two weekends.
The poetic, mesmerizing “Menagerie” (a 1944 Tennessee Williams classic) was precious and perfect, and Mockingbird later in the summer brought its entertaining “Big Rock Candy Mountain” to Moline’s Black Box. It’s still looking for a new home of its own to soar.
One of the countless tragedies of COVID was the fact my younger son had his college choir tour of Europe canceled in March 2020. So it was bittersweet (but mostly sweet) to get to document some local students’ impressions of a different cultural tour in Europe this past summer.
The Quad City Symphony’s Youth Symphony Orchestra (YSO) traveled to Germany and the Czech Republic June 17-26 in the organization’s first overseas tour in 40 years. Of course, it was an awe-inspiring trip of a lifetime.
Two of my many favorite parts of this job are writing about the intimate (60-seat) Black Box Theatre in downtown Moline, and the latest project of the phenomenally talented Shelley Cooper, associate professor of theatre arts at Augustana College, Rock Island.
After earning acclaim for her one-woman show “La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas” (winner of the 2021 of Orlando Fringe Critic’s Choice Award for Best Individual Performance in a Drama), Cooper returned to the Black Box for a new penetrating, insightful, touching look at another operatic superstar – “Jenny Lind Presents P.T. Barnum.”
Two big names that loom large over world culture — and Cooper also traveled to Europe this past summer as part of the new one-woman show’s genesis. That included a performance in a 13th-century Austrian castle.
For several years, I’ve written about the crushingly difficult issue of suicide — which claimed a record number of lives in the U.S. in 2022 (nearly 50,000). It crystalized in one of my most meaningful interviews of the year, with Emma Benoit, a popular high school cheerleader in Louisiana whose life story was shown in the documentary “My Ascension,” shown on WQPT and was the subject of a suicide prevention panel discussion.
In June 2017, a 16-year-old Emma took her father’s gun from her parents’ bedroom and attempted suicide by shooting herself in the chest.
Luckily, she survived, but a spinal cord injury left her paralyzed. Benoit – who turned 23 on Aug. 29 — hasn’t stopped moving since that fateful day, as her life-changing experience helped her find faith and purpose; and propelled her on a mission to use her painful experience and miraculous recovery to help others.
Countering the November trend of yet another holiday musical, Music Guild took the daring step of offering a different shade of red – the bloody, dark, sinister one.
I was assistant music director and rehearsal pianist for the extraordinary Stephen Sondheim musical thriller, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” It was a life-changing experience for me, and everyone involved (roughly 80 total in the cast, orchestra and crew). This preview related some of how much this staggering, sprawling production meant to so many.
A key part of many positive news stories is relating how someone, a couple or organization realized a lifelong dream. Getting to write one about famous people from the QC is the best of both worlds, and this was certainly true late this year with the opening of the stylish new indie movie theater Last Picture House in downtown Davenport.
Conceived and backed by Bettendorf natives, best friends and prolific filmmakers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, The Last Picture House not only totally transformed an old vacant building. It brought yet another shining destination to the booming Motor Row district – two state-of-the-art theaters (showing a variety of first-run and classic films), a gleaming cocktail lounge and coming in the spring, a rooftop bar with another screen.
Beck and Woods clearly love movies and we’re all the beneficiaries of that joy and commitment. Talk about a happy ending.
Close to my birthday, I got the gift of being able to interview the 2023 Miss Iowa, from my adopted hometown, who may become the first young lady from the Hawkeye State to win Miss America (finals will be Jan. 14, 2024 in Orlando).
Alysa Goethe is a driven, laser-focused and super smart 24-year-old Bettendorf High and Drake University alum. She was crowned Miss Iowa 2023 this past June at the Adler Theatre in Davenport, on her fourth attempt in the state competition, earning scholarships totaling $11,950.
She spoke about how diabetes has altered her life (it’s her Miss America social impact initiative), how Miss America is about more than just physical beauty, and how winning could change her life again. But of course, she’s already a winner.
Two honorable mentions
Two other indelible features I did localized worldwide phenomena:
This year’s mega-blockbuster “Barbie” movie raked in $1.4 billion at the global box office. And just like director and critical darling Greta Gerwig, the beautiful, bubbly blonde owners of Rock Island’s Brick & Motor Boutique are cheerful, intelligent, tireless go-getters who are building their own infectious brand.
Sisters Haley Walker and Lauren Corwin celebrated their business’s 5th anniversary with an invitation-only VIP “Barbie”-themed party (at 1629 2nd Ave., Rock Island) and store specials on the weekend the movie premiered. I had the giddy pleasure of posing for a photo with them at the party (their designated “Ken”) in a life-size Barbie box at the entrance.
The musical stars aligned perfectly this past fall as during the same week, the Beatles’ final song (“Now and Then”) was released and the QC band Einstein’s Sister returned to play the Redstone Room in Davenport.
Both the local power pop group and Fab Four have new records mastered by Miles Showell at London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios. Einstein’s Sister guitarist and songwriter Kerry Tucker of Moline got to personally assist Showell with the new EP, “Exit Strategies” this past spring. As a true Beatles fan, that’s another thrill of a lifetime.
The band later headlined the last concert at Rock Island Brewing Co. on Dec. 16, 2023.
To track more QC arts and culture, bookmark this section of our website. Have a happy 2024!!
