Springfield Theatre Center opens its new season with the hilarious Spamalot at the Hoogland Center for the Arts, weekends, Oct. 18-27. Yes, this musical was birthed from the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie, one of the funniest films of all time. Yes, this production includes knights; and fake swords, probably; and showgirls, […]
Broadway
Posted inArts & Culture
Hijinks and hilarity
Roxy Theatricals presents the charming and unique musical A Day in Hollywood: A Night in the Ukraine Sept. 20-22, 26-29. The Broadway sensation, directed and choreographed by legend Tommy Tune, is like two plays in one. The first act before intermission features the usher corps from the famed Hollywood Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in a song-and-tap-dance […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Stage phenomenon
Springfield Municipal Opera (The Muni) ends its 2013 season with the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical that made a sensational 12-year run on Broadway. This local production of Rent will run for three consecutive weekends in September. Based loosely on Puccini’s opera La Boheme, Rent tells the story of seven artists, musicians and creatives finding their voices […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fab foursome
Direct from Broadway, Rain, the internationally-acclaimed Beatles concert, returns by popular demand. As “the next best thing to seeing The Beatles” as touted by the Associated Press, Rain performs the full range of The Beatles’ discography live onstage, including the most complex and challenging songs that The Beatles themselves recorded in the studio but never […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Modern Romeo and Juliet
Broadway comes to Sangamon Auditorium, UIS with the Tony Award-winning Arthur Laurents musical West Side Story, recreated for tour by David Saint. Don’t miss this one night of amazing dance, song and story that for more than 50 years has captivated theater goers. The Bernstein and Sondheim score features songs you’ve never forgotten “Tonight,” “America,” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Top dance
Savion Glover offers a tribute performance, titled Sole Sanctuary, to the art and legends of tap on Oct. 14 at Sangamon Auditorium, UIS. Dancing great Gregory Hines touted, “Savion is possibly the best tap dancer that ever lived.” That pretty much says it all. We don’t need to say that he is producer, choreographer and actor. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Breakout musical
The musical Spring Awakening breaks out on the stage at The Legacy Theatre this weekend and next, Sept. 7-9 and 13-16. Winner of eight Tony Awards, Spring Awakening is full of pent up passions and rebellious sensibilities of a group of late nineteenth-century students trekking their way from adolescence to adulthood. And all that fervor […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Home run
The musical comedy Damn Yankees plays for seven performances over two weekends from Aug. 3-12 at Theatre in the Park in Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site. Based on Douglass Wallop’s novel, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, the musical was a Broadway hit. The tale tells how Joe Boyd sells his soul to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Broadway dynamo
Jennifer Holliday, the Tony Award-winning actress, original dynamo and stellar sensation from the musical Dreamgirls takes to The Legacy Theatre stage in Springfield on July 1 at 7 p.m. Best known for her Grammy Award-winning song “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” Holliday made a new generation of fans when she appeared this […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fun farewell
Theatre in the Park at Kelso Hollow in Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site presents the comedic musical Bye, Bye Birdie. Sean VanAusdall-Rose directs this classic that opened on Broadway in 1960 featuring a story based loosely on the media circus of Elvis Presley’s 1958 Germany departure that had him giving one last kiss to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Monsterly marvelous
The musical comedy Young Frankenstein, from the creators of the record-breaking Broadway sensation The Producers, comes to Sangamon Auditorium, UIS Saturday, April 21. Based on Mel Brooks’ hilarious film by the same name, three-time Tony winner Brooks himself wrote the music and lyrics and co-wrote the book to this musical, along with three-time Tony-winning writer […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Colorful comedy
This Tony-award winning musical features puppets, with their masters in full view, but don’t let the furry little guys fool you – these fellows are more like the older dudes on Fraggle Rock than the young’ns on Sesame Street. And their bite of sarcasm and realism makes this an adult-audience-only show. The story follows recent […]
