Phil Funkenbusch

Untitled Document This year has already brought exciting theater offerings — including the Springfield Theatre Centre’s Dreamgirls, which warmed things up during two bitterly cold weekends — to the capital city, and more is on the way, beginning with Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers, which opens at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 1. […]

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, directed by Matt Schwartz for two performances, Nov. 16 and 17, at the University of Illinois at Springfield’s Studio Theatre. Most people associate […]

Untitled Document The fall theater season has much to offer. Here is just some of what will be happening on area stages. The season starts off in a big way Sept. 21-23 at the Hoogland Center for the Arts, when The Pirates of Penzance, featuring recording artist and Broadway actor Rex Smith as the Pirate […]

Untitled Document Every year at least one Muni Opera show suffers from the intense summer heat. This year’s victim was Oklahoma!, which ended the Muni season this past weekend. For a period show in which everyone — especially the women — wears layers of clothing, it’s no fun, but it’s a part of performing outdoor […]

Untitled Document I have a hunch that one of the highlights of the area’s summer theater will be the rarely seen musical Once on This Island, which opens Friday, July 20, at New Salem’s Theatre in the Park. The 1990 Broadway musical is directed by Daniel J. Bonnett, a Springfield native who now lives in […]

Every morning for nearly two years now, I’ve passed a lifelike figure of John Wilkes Booth on my way to work at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. This week, Booth comes to life onstage in one of the most thought-provoking, challenging, and disturbing musicals of recent years. Lincoln’s murderer is one of nine disturbed people […]

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 playwrights. This ADHD Productions show, designated for “mature audiences only,” is directed by Jason Goodreau and performed by Goodreau, Hillary Gorrell, Jeff Nevins, Carrie Risdon, Patrick Russell, Grace Smith, […]

So much theater is being performed in the region right now, it’s impossible to see it all. Fortunately, I was able to enjoy three excellent productions last week that prove central Illinois a great theater center: Beauty & the Beast in Sullivan, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in Bloomington, and Broadway, a delightful relic of the Roaring […]