Summer Fun Guide 2025

MCT Trails Pg. 7

Summer Fun Guide 2025

Schedule 2025 Pg. 8

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Alton Main Street announces 2025 summer music, festival, and market lineup

Page 7 MCT Trails Map Page 8

River Dragons Schedule 2025 Page 9

Alton Little Theater unveils ambitious 2025-26 season with musicals and classics

Alton Main Street announces 2025 summer music, festival, and market lineup

Here's the lineup for Alton Main Street's Night Market and Mississippi Earthtones Festival

Alton Main Street recently announced the lineup of regional musicians that have been booked to perform at the organization’s upcoming events. Eight weeks of live bands have been scheduled for the Night Market on Broadway, which takes place from 7 to 10 p.m. every Thursday in June and July.

The 2025 Night Market will be relocating to the green space on Third Street, as well as taking over “Sugar Alley,” which runs parallel to Broadway. This summer series features live music in an outdoor setting, artwork, and other handmade or homegrown products, vintage and hip thrift items. Everheart and Light will host a weekly after-party until midnight on the patio at Chez Marilyn.

Summer lineup includes:

• June 5: Local favorite

HOOKiE

• June 8: The Outlaw Opry, from 1 to 3 p.m., during the All-Wheels Drive-In Car Show at Third and Belle Streets

• June 12: Psychedelic Symphony

• June 19: Silver Creek Bluegrass Band

• June 26: The Wherehouse Project

• July 3: Night Market break; fireworks display

• July 10: Olive performing indie songs written by multi-instrumentalist front man Owen Weber.

• July 17: Liver Jones & The Flatworms

• July 24: Erin Jo and The Greater Good

• July 31: Lonesome Blues on 7/31

• Ten acoustic musical acts

are featured in the Alton Farmers’ and Artisans’ Market special events calendar this season:

• May 10: Alton High School Jazz Combo

• May 17: Michael Hubbert K

• May 31: Ken Christopher and Linda Mortland

• June 7: Jenny’s Paradox

• June 21: Diamond Duo, featuring Sue Kennedy and Keith Roberson

• Aug. 16: Acoustic Potluck

• Aug. 30: Paul Light

• Sept. 6: Charlotte Lenore

• Sept. 20: Chuck’s Grass

• Rounding out the season’s live-music entertainment is Steph Plant on Aug. 27. A variety of artist demonstrations and other themed activities will take place on the rest of the market weekends through Oct. 18 from 8 a.m.

to noon every Saturday. The market is located at the corner of Landmarks Boulevard and Henry Street, with a variety of items for sale, including locally-grown seasonal produce, breakfast items and baked goods, hand crafted artwork, and more. The market vendors change every week.

The Mississippi Earthtones Festival, which is an art, music and conservation festival all in one, will take place from noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Alton Amphitheater. The event is co-hosted by Alton Main Street, the Sierra Club, and Jacoby Arts Center. The festival attracts thousands of community members to the riverfront every third Saturday in September with live music.

The featured lineup includes: Noon-1:45 p.m.: Spillie Nelson 1:45-2:45 p.m. and 6-7 p.m.:

Jason “Gordo” Gordon 3:15-6 p.m.: Any Major DudesSteely Dan Experience

As is tradition, the Mississippi Earthtones Festival headlining act will be Jake’s Leg, the longest running Grateful Dead Tribute in the world at 49 years and counting. The Mississippi Earthtones Festival features a kids zone, environmental education booths, earth-friendly activities, art installations, and many food choices.

The Downtown Alton Chili Cook-Off will be held on Sunday, Oct. 19, at the FLOCK Food Truck Park, a new venue this year. The Number4Combo will perform from noon to 3 p.m. For more information, visit DowntownAlton.com.

Market

Alton Little Theater unveils ambitious 2025-26 season with musicals and classics

Rare production of 'Chicago' highlights Alton Little Theater lineup

really over the top and spectacular. Most of our shows have a very bigname recognition.”

From classic comedy and drama to elaborate musicals, the Alton Little Theater has a varied and ambitious 2025-26 season coming.

Running from June 2025 to May 2026, it includes eight major shows, five of them musicals, according to Executive Director Eric Sykes.

Included this season is a Disneybased show with a 17-and-under cast, an experiment with reserved seating, a return of last year’s popular “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and a production of “Chicago,” which is rarely performed in community theater.

“The lineup was really designed for my first season here,” Sykes said last week. “I really wanted something just

There are also several season ticket options.

The 92nd season includes “Dare to Dream Junior: A Disney Musical Revue” June 19-22; “9 to 5 the Musical” Aug. 8-17; “Arsenic and Old Lace” Sept. 5-14; “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” Oct. 24-Nov. 2; “Twelve Angry Men” Nov. 14-23; “CHICAGO” Jan. 23-Feb. 1; “Four Old Broads” March 6-15 and “Godspell” May 8-17.

Season ticket packages and individual tickets are available now at altonlittletheater.org . For more information, visit the website or ALT’s Facebook page.

‘Dare to Dream Junior’ auditions open for Disney show

The season opens June 19 with

“Dare to Dream Junior,” which includes an all-youth cast.

“It’s packed with about 20 Disney songs,” Sykes said. “It’s going to be high energy.”

“We’re looking for some very talented kiddos, but we’re also going to teach them some things,” he added. “It’s sort of like classes and rehearsals, all while putting a show on in June.”

Auditions are set for March 29.

“If you have kids who are seasoned on stage or new on stage, it doesn’t matter, we’re looking for everybody,” he added.

‘9 to 5’ musical introduces assigned seating, VIP tickets

Based on the 1980 comedy starring Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dabney Coleman, the musical premiered in 2008.

“This musical was based off of that

movie, with most of the music written by Dolly Parton herself,” Sykes said.

“It’s a hilarious show, and I know our audiences are going to love that.”

It follows three office workers dealing with and eventually extracting revenge on their terrible boss.

New for this production will be an experiment with assigned seating.

“Usually our tickets are first-come, first-serve, so you buy a ticket and get here early as you can and get the best seat in the house,” Sykes said. “For this, we will have a seating map. You will have the seat that you want when you buy it.

“I’ve heard from a lot of audience members that they would like to be able to choose their seats ahead of time,” Sykes said. “Depending on how

that goes, we may just offer that for our 93rd season.”

They will also be selling VIP tickets for the first three rows.

“For a little bit extra, you can get a seat in the first three rows, and you will also be given a specialty show drink,” he added.

‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ delivers dark comedy on stage

“Arsenic and Old Lace” will be directed by Cameron Ulrich. Based on the hit 1939 play by Joseph Kesselring, and more famously known for Frank Capra’s movie version, it is a farcical black comedy that tells the story of the oddball – and often murderous – Brewster family.

“It’s really just a good, funny play that the audience is going to enjoy,” Sykes said.

He added that it will be interesting to see how the set design goes.

“I’m excited to get to work on that,” he said. “You just never know what you’re going to see when you walk into our theater. That’s one of the fun things of live theater, just getting to walk into the room for the first time and see the set and the anticipation of the show starting.”

Devonn DeLong directs ‘Rocky Horror’ at Alton Little Theater

“Rocky Horror Picture Show” will be directed by Devonn DeLong. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” like “Arsenic and Old Lace,” started as a theatrical production, but is best known for a cult classic movie.

The musical, written by Richard O’Brien, who played Riff Raff in the original production and the movie, premiered in 1973.

A campy tribute to B movies, it is known for its sexual themes. It was performed at Alton Little Theater last year.

“It’s a really eclectic group of people who put on this show,” Sykes said. “If you haven’t seen it in person, you should see it at least once.

“I was surprised to see some of our season ticket regulars here for Rocky Horror,” he said. “I think we’ll have more of that this year, as word gets around about how fun this show is.”

Kristi Doering directs ‘12 Angry Men’ for new season

“12 Angry Men” will be directed by Kristi Doering.

“We’re going from ‘Rocky Horror’ to

‘12 Angry Men,’ which is a wonderful drama,” Sykes said.

It centers around a jury’s deliberation during a murder trial.

“Henry Fonda was in the original movie, and this was based off that movie,” Sykes said.

“It’s going to be a wonderful night of drama,” he added. “I heard a lot of feedback from our audience that they would like us to do at least one drama each season.”

ALT lands rare rights to stage ‘Chicago’

Sykes, who will direct “Chicago,” called it the “anchor for this season.”

“That’s a pretty big, ambitious show to pull off,” he said.

He also noted that it is one of the hardest to obtain rights to, especially for community theaters, and the theater got the rights to perform the musical a few weeks before announcing the season.

“It isn’t given out very often,” he said. “A lot of schools and colleges are able to do ‘Chicago’ because they allow educational programs to put those on. But ‘Chicago’ for community theater is very hard to get.”

Part of the reason is that it is a difficult production, but also an iconic show.

“That’s why it’s so protected,” he said.

Randy Manning to direct ‘Four Old Broads’ comedy

“Four Old Broads” to be directed by Randy Manning.

“This one is not as well known, but as we’ve learned from our audiences, they’re open to new things,” Sykes said. “We’ve done a lot of lesser-known plays that have done very, very well here.”

A farcical comedy, it is about four old ladies in a retirement home trying to plan a vacation.

“They get into all sorts of antics, including thinking the head nurse is out to get them,” Sykes said.

Kristi Doering directs ‘Godspell’ in ambitious season finale

The season will close out with Kristi Doering directing “Godspell,” a retelling of the Gospel of Matthew.

“The funny thing about ‘Godspell,’ depending on what the director wants to do, ‘Godspell’ can be anything you want it to be,” Sykes said, adding the cast can be young or old, and it can be set in the city or country.

“We’re really upping the ante here,” Sykes said. “It’s a really ambitious season. I have a wonderful team of directors that are ready to hit the ground running on these shows.”