Phil Funkenbusch

The theater department at Parkland College in Champaign invites community members to participate in campus productions. By combining the talents of student and community actors, Parkland has been able to give us such outstanding recent productions as Assassins and The Laramie Project. This week, the college stages a play for young people, The Phantom Tollbooth, […]

Let me mention some of the many good things that happened on area stages in 2004 before taking a look at what’s planned for the Springfield-area theater scene this year. The Hoogland Center for the Arts is undoubtedly the main story of the arts community this past year. Not a week goes by in which […]

If you’re looking for an alternative to Christmas-show overload, check out the Portuguese Rodeo Clown Company, which features three actors performing improvisations and other comic antics onstage for one night at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. The “clown company” includes Andy Lee and Johnny Molson, co-hosts of a show on WMAY (970 AM), and […]

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 presented Thursday-Sunday, Dec. 2-5, at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. This year’s production, in which Mrs. Santa Claus and […]

Springfield Theatre Centre opens its production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman this week on the main stage of the Hoogland Center for the Arts. Don Russell, Loretta Hess, Mac Warren, and Rob Decroix, respectively, star in the roles of beleaguered Brooklyn salesman Willy Loman, his wife, and his two sons. The casting of […]

Halloween is here, and it seems that theater practitioners have decided to produce more than the usual haunted-house fare this year. First, the Roxy Group has created an original show of its own, a musical revue titled Halloween Dreams that plays Friday-Sunday, Oct. 29-31, at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. The show, directed by […]

The community has lost another champion of the arts with the passing of Martha Jackson of Petersburg. Jackson and her partner, Linda Nordeman, owned the City Arts Venue art gallery, a space dedicated to new artists and their work, downtown on South Sixth Street. The first time I met Marty, she asked, “Why don’t you […]

The Springfield Theatre Centre’s current production Sunday in the Park with George is a show not to be missed — in fact, I recommend that you see it more than once. I have never witnessed such a prolonged audience ovation at the end of a first act as I saw last week. When the auditorium […]

One can take the pulse of a community’s theater scene by counting the number of new or little-known shows that are produced. It’s always a risk to stage something new because, more than likely, the audiences will be small. But theater patrons who are willing to try something new are also an appreciative lot, and […]

The fall theater season is fast approaching, and many new and exciting shows are scheduled in the Springfield area. Let’s start with a brand new show. Jacksonville Theatre Guild and Allegro Productions present 63, an original musical, at the Sophie Leschin Theatre (Sept. 10-12, 17-19). Mike Savage’s show centers around the lives of two best […]

It’s always good news when a theater introduces a new show, especially during the summertime when a typical line-up consists of the tried-and-true. And it looks like Theatre in the Park’s decision to stage a little-known show like The Spitfire Grill has not deterred audiences from making the short trek to New Salem. The Spitfire […]