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. […]
Arts Features
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Cuckoo redux
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 […]
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Hello, neighbor!
Untitled Document Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson, director of the University of Illinois-Springfield theater department’s fall production, Picnic, held rehearsals five nights a week for more than a month before opening the William Inge romantic drama this Friday. She’s ready for a little shut-eye. “I think I’m putting a bed in my office,” Thibodeaux-Thompson says. “The last couple […]
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Pirates, Angels, and Miss Daisy
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 […]
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Heating up the stage
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 […]
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Temptation Island
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 […]
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Killer theater
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 […]
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Finding Fogel
Finding Fogel It is an event Seymour Fogel himself most likely would have shunned. In fact, the artist would probably be better known today were it not for his intense independence and passionately private nature. Art historian Greta Berman has said of Fogel (1911-1984), “He didn’t ‘play the game’ and he never promoted himself. He […]
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Witness
His bronze sculptures, monuments, and paintings tell of deep sorrow: the scars of slavery, the sacrifice of immigration, the quiet suffering of women. His art also speaks of hope: the eloquent words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the restless spirit of pioneer Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the creative rebirth of the Harlem Renaissance. […]
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For mature audiences only
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, […]
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Choice art
New York art doesn’t pop up in Springfield too often, but thanks to a biannual fundraiser hosted by Planned Parenthood Springfield, locals get a chance to see and buy a range of works from a renowned Big Apple gallery. PPS’s Art Auction is a large affair boasting 200 framed-and-matted art works, courtesy of New York […]
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A kiss is still a kiss
Don’t call Diana Son’s 1998 play Stop Kiss a political piece. It’s a love story. The first time Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson, assistant professor of theater at Illinois College, read the last scene of Stop Kiss, she gasped. Since that moment three years ago, she has wanted to direct the play. This Friday, she gets her chance […]
