In one of those rare but welcome departures from local norms, a play is being performed in Springfield that probably hasn’t been done in years, if ever. While Greek tragedy might not be high up on everyone’s list, I hope you make the time to see this one. The story and the production expertly explore […]
Arts Features
Posted inArts & Culture
STC’s The Addams Family – An ooky love story
The Addams Family musical is based on a 1964 sitcom which was inspired by the cartoons of Charles Addams. All feature Gomez Addams, his wife Morticia and children Pugsley and Wednesday. They share their home on Cemetery Lane with Uncle Fester, butler Lurch, helping hand Thing and someone’s grandma. They are a close-knit family with […]
Posted inArts Features
Students compete in 2026 Poetry Out Loud
The Springfield Area Arts Council will host the Poetry Out Loud Central Illinois Regional Contest at 4 p.m. on Thursday, February 12, at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. The event is free and open to the public. Poetry Out Loud, a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts and state and jurisdictional arts agencies, is […]
Posted inArts Features
The Muni’s season of love
The Springfield Muni Opera’s Season of Love theme promises to be another memorable summer under the stars with an expanded slate of offerings from four shows to five, including a junior production. The season kicks off with Mamma Mia! opening May 29, followed by All Shook Up opening June 19, The Prince of Egypt: The […]
Posted inArts Features
Something’s Afoot: A musical mystery spoof
Something’s Afoot, written by James McDonald, David Vos and Robert Gerlach, is a silly musical whodunit that lightheartedly pokes fun at, of all things, murder. Specifically, it makes light of the kind of murder mystery conceived in the mind of popular writer Agatha Christie. The show, with a direct nod to Christie’s novel And Then […]
Posted inArts Features
Evening fun at historic sites
This winter, area residents have opportunities to experience the Dana-Thomas House and Old State Capitol through a wide range of evening programs. These sites are popular tourist attractions in the capital city but are also offering programming designed to appeal to locals. Justin Blandford, superintendent of state historic sites in Springfield, told Illinois Times they […]
Posted inFilm
Best films of 2025
The major film studios are in a desperate spot, still not having recovered from the mass exodus to home viewing that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. Getting enough viewers to theaters to justify the huge budgets for tentpole movies has proven difficult. Once sure things, such as Marvel films or big-budget action movies, are no […]
Posted inArts Features
The real story of A Christmas Carol
The well-loved tale of redemption popular this time of year, A Christmas Carol, wasn’t sparked by joy, but sorrow. When London journalist and author Charles Dickens wrote what became the most copied secular Christmas fiction, he was dejected, financially stressed and fighting for societal reform. To publish Scrooge’s trials in time for Christmas, he had […]
Posted inArts Features
Put on a happy face
Bye Bye Birdie is a satirically corny, upbeat and schmaltzy musical waxing nostalgia about the 1950s. The show was a hit on Broadway when it debuted in 1961 and only grew in popularity with the release of the 1963 Ann-Margret film. It delivers a hefty songbook of toe-tapping tunes including “How Lovely to be a […]
Posted inArts Features
Fences is raw and essential theater
August Wilson’s Fences is one of those plays that most people read at some point in their education, but only by seeing it performed can one fully grasp its poetic simplicity. Fences was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for its intricately woven story of the personal struggles of a 1950s Black family […]
Posted inArts Features
Springfield Theatre Centre’s The Hello Girls
Area audiences have the chance to catch a new (for Springfield) musical about a small group of World War I heroes, and this writer hopes you take it. The Hello Girls is an uplifting and exciting history lesson that chronicles the journey of five courageous women who served as bilingual telephone operators on the front lines […]
Posted inArts Features
The Laramie Project at UIS
Ten actors playing more than 60 characters will tell the real-life story of how the community of Laramie, Wyoming, reacted to the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, in 1998. The Laramie Project, a play by Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, opens Nov. 7 at University of Illinois Springfield. “It […]
