{"id":2151545,"date":"2025-11-12T13:49:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2151545"},"modified":"2025-11-12T13:49:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:49:24","slug":"hometown-holiday-brings-music-and-laughter-to-rockford-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/hometown-holiday-brings-music-and-laughter-to-rockford-this-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Hometown Holiday brings music and laughter to Rockford this season"},"content":{"rendered":"

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J.R. Sullivan is bringing his Hometown Holiday<\/a> show back to Rockford for two performances in December.<\/p>\n

The show will be held at the RPL Nordlof Center, 118 N. Main St., according to a community announcement.<\/p>\n

Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12 and 3 p.m. Dec. 13 in the J.R. Sullivan Theater, named in honor of Sullivan\u2019s contributions to Rockford\u2019s cultural life and his founding of the New American Theater.<\/p>\n

The production features a blend of holiday and popular music, comedy sketches and storytelling, performed by a talented ensemble of regional and local musicians and actors.<\/p>\n

A Rockford tradition<\/h2>\n

Sullivan launched Hometown Holiday in 1994 and continued the tradition for 25 years before announcing its final curtain in 2019. However, public demand led to a return in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis special show \u2014 in my hometown \u2014 has been a great joy to prepare and perform just about every year since 1994,\u201d Sullivan said in the announcement. \u201cRockford gave me my start in theater, and this show is in large part my continuing thanks to this great town. We will plan to add zest and fun from downtown Rockford for another hometown holiday season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullivan\u2019s legacy in Rockford began in 1972 when he founded the New American Theater, which evolved from performances above Charlotte\u2019s Web music club to a permanent home in the Nordlof Center in 1986.<\/p>\n

According to the announcement, after leaving Rockford in 1994, Sullivan built a career in Chicago and New York, including leadership roles at the Utah Shakespeare Festival and New York\u2019s Pearl Theatre, which earned a Drama Desk Award under his direction. His 2018 Off-Broadway revival of “Days to Come” by Lillian Hellman was named one of the year\u2019s top productions by The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

Tickets available now<\/h2>\n

Tickets are available online at Eventbrite<\/a> or in person at the J.R. Kortman Center for Design.<\/p>\n

This story was created by reporter Abreanna Blose, ablose@usatodayco.com<\/a>, with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com\/ethical-conduct<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Rockford\u2019s Hometown Holiday show is back this December<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

J.R. Sullivan is bringing his Hometown Holiday show back to Rockford for two performances in December. The show will be held at the RPL Nordlof Center, 118 N. Main St., according to a community announcement. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12 and 3 p.m. Dec. 13 in the J.R. Sullivan Theater, named in honor of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2151546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[335720,411646,411649,411648,411650,335051,411647],"class_list":["post-2151545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-community-announcement","tag-hometown-holiday","tag-j-r-sullivan","tag-j-r-sullivan-theater","tag-new-american-theater","tag-rockford","tag-rpl-nordlof-center"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Hometown-Holiday-brings-music-and-laughter-to-Rockford-this-season.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2151545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2151547,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151545\/revisions\/2151547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2151546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2151545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2151545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2151545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}