The Springfield Muni Opera opens this weekend with the Broadway show Titanic: the Musical (June 6-8 and 11-15). With a score by Maury Yeston (Phantom), Titanic won five Tony Awards six years ago, including Best Musical. The tragic story was turned into a stage musical almost a year before the release of the 1997 blockbuster […]
Arts Features
Posted inArts & Culture
Summer onstage 2003
Summer theater has experienced a bit of a boom in central Illinois over the past few years, with more eclectic choices offering something for everyone. Springfield’s Muni Opera breaks new ground with two area premieres–Titanic (June 6 through 15) and Big (June 27 through July 6). Director Paul Presney Jr. has been working on Titanic […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Backstage Pass
Theater has always held a mirror up to society, and the view is often unflattering. The old Shubert Theatre in Chicago usually hosts traveling musicals, but this weekend wraps up The Exonerated, a powerful play by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen. The script, culled from actual interviews and court transcripts, relates the stories of six […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Anatomy of a Playwright
Eve Ensler, the 49-year-old author and sometime performer of The Vagina Monologues, is on a pay phone at the Denver International Airport. She’s about to board a transpacific flight bound for Melbourne, Australia. “My head is spinning,” she says. In the six years since The Vagina Monologues opened off-Broadway, the play has turned into an […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Backstage Pass
Springfield Theatre Centre is presenting Tennessee Williams’ drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof this weekend, March 14 through 16, in a production directed by Ed Smith. If you’re wondering why STC seems determined to revive old Williams plays (it produced A Streetcar Named Desire in 2001), perhaps these 50-year-old war horses are back in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Backstage Pass
If you’re planning to take in Charlotte’s Web at the Springfield Theatre Centre over the next two weekends (May 9 to 11, and 16 to 18) you might consider going twice. Director Nancy Miller has cast the leading role of “Charlotte” with two of Springfield’s strongest young performers, Talor Lutz and Molly Mathewson. It might […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Backstage Pass
A touring company of the drama The Miracle Worker makes a stop at UIS’s Sangamon Auditorium for one performance Saturday, April 25 (call 206-6160). The four-month, 40-city national tour comes from the Montana Repertory Theatre in Missoula. William Gibson originally wrote The Miracle Worker as a 1957 television play. It went on to win a […]
