Coming from nearby Bloomington to celebrate Old Abe’s birthday, Old Smoke Band invited Springfield’s own Trina Madonia to sing some lead and background vocals for the occasion. Starting out in 2013 as a duo called The Armadillo Brothers, the two soon grew into the Americana fivesome of Adam Humphreys (guitar, vocals), Jeremy Myers (guitar, vocals), […]
springfield
Posted inArts & Culture
A murderous meeting
Join the Lanphier High School Drama Club for a murder mystery involving a gathering of the world’s greatest mystery writers, all attending under aliases of famous authors. A poetry-spouting “Shakespeare” quickly captures the affections of “Shelley”, “Bronte” and “Alcott” but the romance is thwarted when “Poe” reveals a nasty bit of correspondence and authors suddenly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Taxi Tehran
The fourth film in the 25th Annual Molly Schlich Film Series is 2015’s Taxi Tehran. When Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi is banned from making movies by the Iranian government, he poses as a taxi driver to film a movie about social challenges in Iran. The result is a comedy/drama that captures portraits of everyday people. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Mr. Throng
PHOTO COURTESY AMY ALKON Amy Alkon I’m a 35-year-old woman, and I’ve been involved with a guy around my age for almost two years. It’s been “open.” Well, that is, he’s had the freedom to sleep with other people. I haven’t wanted to. I finally realized that I am not happy with this and want […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Super Bowl chilli
Black bean chilli. PHOTO BY NURI VALLBONA/TNS When my Illinois Times colleague David Hine asked if I would devote a column to chilli in advance of the Super Bowl, my response was, “Sure, as long as I can spell it with two lls.” But truthfully, writing about chilli is something I’ve both wanted to do […]
Posted inArts & Culture
tintin poem #2
tintin poem #2 WILL has opera on saturdayalso classics by request not surewhich this was on but I’ve alwaysliked the announcer john frayne Ilisten in the car didn’t get in on thefirst bars of a soprano singing aflorid aria lots of high notes trillsvolume john frayne at its finish saidthat was the jewel song from faustby […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A comedy of bad manners
Beat the winter blahs by taking in a hilarious comedy of bad manners set in a 1920s English country house. Hay Fever tells the comical tale of retired actress Judith Bliss, her novelist husband and their two avant-garde adult children. Each member of the family has invited a guest to the family home for the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A play about pursuing a deam
Join the Springfield Theatre Centre at the Hoogland Center for the Arts Jan 15-17 and 22-24 for their presentation of Tick, Tick… BOOM!, an autobiographical musical by American award-winning composer Jonathan Larson. Tick, Tick… BOOM! is set in New York City during the 1990s, and tells the story of a young man who is questioning […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Homecoming for Hillary
Enjoy an art exhibition and meet and greet with Hillary Werth, a skilled athlete turned talented contemporary artist. This is the first hometown art show for Werth, a 2005 graduate of Chatham Glenwood High School who excelled in sports, especially track and field where she earned the title of AA sectional champion. Hillary began competing […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Shove hurts
PHOTO COURTESY AMY ALKON Amy Alkon I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on a relationship coach who instructed me to cut off all sex and even all contact with the guy I was dating until he agreed to marry me. I knew he loved me and wanted to marry me; I just wanted him to do […]
Posted inMusic
Angela Perley & the Howlin Moons
Hailing from Columbus, Ohio and hitting towns all over the Midwest since 2009 with the sound and the fury of a modern American rock and roll band on a mission, Angela Perley (vocals, electric guitar, musical saw), Chris Connor (lead electric guitar), Billy Zehnal (electric bass) and various drummers including Maxwell Button, Adam White and […]
Posted inOpinion
Should corporations pay their taxes?
Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Carl Icahn, noted corporate predator and takeover specialist who made billions of dollars in corporate deals, has recently begun pushing a charitable cause involving a group of people who, through no fault of their own, are being forced out of America. Syrian migrants who’ve lost everything, you ask? […]
