Many area theaters take the opportunity to present new and innovative works during the winter months, something I noted in my last column. The latest example of this trend is Born with ]]> Untitled Document What has to be the most exciting stage show of the fall is the upcoming One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the stage version of the classic 1962 Ken Kesey novel,]]> “My radiation oncologist cruelly resisted my pleas. I begged him to irradiate the unaffected breast so it would be big and perky and glow in the dark like the one they ]]> Missouri-born, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lanford Wilson has been writing plays since the off-off-Broadway movement began in New York in the 1960s. His first plays were produced at ]]> Nestled in the basement between thick square support pillars, the young musicians eagerly consume sheet after sheet of music, building a crescendo with violins, timpani and horns. Three floors up, a g]]> I admit that I watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show a few times growing up, mostly to learn the dance steps to the Time Warp to fit in at the high school Halloween Dance… ]]> Five thousand years of Chinese performing arts and culture will take the stage Feb. 9 at Sangamon Auditorium in a multimillion-dollar touring production called Shen Yun (“divine character”]]> It's Thanksgiving, and that means the start of the Christmas season. The holiday theater season kicks off next week with A Yuletide Festival of Song and Dance, a show by the Mature Mob that's being]]> I’m playing town crier this week for the comedy Rounding Third, which finishes a two-weekend run at the Hoogland Center for the Arts this Friday and Saturday, May 27 and 28. It’s]]> Only through the lens of the late Theodor Seuss Geisle, better known as Dr. Seuss, can a chaotic menagerie of made-up creatures bring order and wisdom from whimsy and fun. Filled with comedies such as]]> What could possibly be more fun than a Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake? How about two ice cream cakes and one wedding ring? Throw in a rich software developer named Alvin Chandler, a veterinarian named ]]> A touring company of the drama The Miracle Worker makes a stop at UIS's Sangamon Auditorium for one performance Saturday, April 25 (call 206-6160). The four-month, 40-city national tour comes from the]]> Springfield gets its first look next week at Rounding Third, a new comedy by Richard Dresser that played off-Broadway and has been a hit in theaters around the country. Jason]]> Mark E. Gifford is known throughout the Midwest as a keyboard virtuoso whose concerts at Springfield High School’s restored Orpheum Theater pipe organ are always well attended. But th]]> Playwright Charlayne Woodard has something in common with her characters. Like Oh Beah, Mercy, Ezra, Alma, and Nate – the five slaves in Flight’s ensemble – Woodard is compelled to t]]> Untitled Document Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson, director of the University of Illinois-Springfield theater department’s fall production, Picnic, held rehearsals five nights a ]]> Springfield gets one last chance to see the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play Proof before it hits the big screen in a version starring Gwyneth Paltrow. The local production, directed by Eri]]> Onstage this week is a two-performance bill of short plays titled Danger: Adult Content, featuring a group of local actors performing 10 short pieces by contemporary American playwright]]> Eve Ensler, the 49-year-old author and sometime performer of The Vagina Monologues, is on a pay phone at the Denver International Airport. She's about to board a transpacific flight bound for Melbourn]]>