Phil Funkenbusch

The show of the summer is Ragtime. The musical opened last Friday at the Springfield Muni Opera and runs through this Sunday, July 3. There is not one weak performance in this production. In fact, this is one of those times when every single part is absolutely right. Ragtime features Mary Jo Curry, Tony D. Young, […]

Great things are happening on summer stages. I just saw 42nd Street in Sullivan at the Little Theatre on the Square. Having seen back in 1980 the original Broadway production, which began with a slow curtain rising on what seemed to be 100 pairs of tap-dancing feet, I wondered how effective the opening would be handled […]

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 the first production of the just-formed ADHD Productions, and local actors Jason Goodreau and Mac Warren are performing this must-see play by Richard […]

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 Goodreau and Mac Warren, two local actors, are responsible for the Springfield production, and they play the lead roles. Rounding Third follows Don, a tough, blue-collar, […]

Springfield Theatre Centre had a big hit last year with its production of Annie. The same STC directing team (Julie Davis, Doug Hahn, Gary Shull) is back with this week’s opening of Bye, Bye Birdie on the main stage of the Hoogland Center for the Arts. The show runs two weekends, April 29-May 1 and May […]

Many of this weekend’s theatrical offerings are focused on the celebration of the official opening of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. A big downtown block party, with history as its theme, is planned for a large area stretching from the Lincoln Home neighborhood north to the museum, 212 N. Sixth St. On the grounds of […]

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 Café Cino and the still-in-operation LaMamma Theater. A few of Wilson’s plays made it to Broadway, and one, Fifth of July, will be seen here, in the University […]

So many companies in the region have scheduled productions of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast during the next few months (including the Springfield Muni, St. Louis’ Muny Opera, and the Little Theatre in Sullivan), I wish they could have been spread out a bit. Undoubtedly one of the best of the lot is the current production […]

How long has it been since a high-school show caused controversy? A few years ago, Springfield High School’s production of a harmless Gilbert and Sullivan operetta caused a stir when a female student was cast in a male role. And a few high schools around the country have received some ire by staging The Laramie […]

A deliriously affectionate ensemble of actors is having a ball in Springfield Theatre Centre’s production of the 1930s comedy You Can’t Take It with You, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, which concludes its run this weekend at the Center for the Arts (8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday). Felicia Coulter must […]

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 a Veil, a work by local playwright Kari Catton Anderson that is being given a workshop production in the third-floor Club Room of […]