Feature

For 40 summers, the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, part of Illinois State University’s College of Fine Arts, has presented professional theatrical productions in the idyllic setting of Bloomington’s Ewing Manor Cultural Center.  This season’s offerings consist of the Bard’s historical drama Henry V and his wacky Elizabethan sex farce The Merry Wives of Windsor (here given […]

Springfield may not be a suburb of Chicago, but efforts are afoot to make practical, daily commuting between the two cities – and other Illinois cities – a reality. And it would only take a rail system almost three times as fast as current high-speed trains, at a cost nearly equal to the entire fiscal […]

The Kidzeum of Health and Science opens in downtown Springfield on Saturday, July 21. After years of planning and fundraising, the long-awaited children’s museum will at last be a reality. Kids are certain to have fun tickling a giant nose and making it sneeze. Although the focus for kids is having fun, at the Kidzeum […]

Opening the Kidzeum has been a long journey with a winding path. In the end, it came full circle, with the Kidzeum opening in downtown Springfield just a few blocks from the original location of the Springfield Children’s Museum. In the intervening time, a lot has changed downtown. The idea of a children’s museum started […]

After years of idle public speculation, abandoned plans and long periods of apparent inaction, the stretch of Jackson Street north of the Governor’s Mansion will unveil the results of a new streetscaping project. This will coincide with the completion of the renovation of the mansion itself as well as the premier of the newly completed […]

 2018 Images of Illinois Winners Once again, Illinois Times celebrates the wonders of the prairie state by showcasing winning images from the Springfield Art Association’s SAA Collective annual Images of Illinois photography contest. The seventh annual contest, which highlights images shot on Illinois land and/or water, had a submission period of March 1, 2018, through […]

1. Inject money into the local economy. When you shop local, your money and tax dollars stay in the community, helping your schools, your streets and your city’s coffers, which helps to fund everything from sidewalks to libraries. 2. You also keep money in the United States. In fact, if every family in the United […]

Online shopping is a tool that our culture has adopted in full force, and it is hard to argue with the convenience factor that online shopping provides. Even those of us who do our best to keep our dollars local need or want the convenience of ordering an item online every once in awhile. But […]

Restoration of the Governor’s Mansion is wrapping up for a grand opening in July. The mansion is the third-oldest continuously occupied executive mansion in the United States and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976. It has a rich history, in its occupants and frequent restorations. The mansion has witnessed births, […]

A vibrant and fanciful painting of Carolina parakeets is juxtaposed with a taxidermy mount of this once prolific bird that was hunted to extinction. An original John Deere steel plow appears so simple, yet it broke the prairie soil and transformed agriculture. These are just two examples of objects telling stories in the new exhibition […]

With the corporate parent of Bergner’s declaring bankruptcy and Sears struggling, two of the city’s oldest and largest department stores, both in White Oaks Mall, are shutting down. But the death of the department store – or the mall itself – can be much exaggerated. “From a 30,000-foot perspective, I know, for people in Springfield, […]

The man who wants to be Illinois’ next attorney general has a mean jump shot, would rather listen than talk, has survived cancer and draws inspiration from his own life experiences when taking a stand on key issues. One of those experiences profoundly affected his life and political outlook. “I recall about seven years ago […]