Last year, a longtime Rockford creative said, “We’ll just do one more show,” during a WNIJ interview. Well, it turns out, that wasn’t the last one. J.R. Sullivan’s Hometown Holiday returns to the city this weekend.
Producer and director J.R. Sullivan began the variety show about 30 years ago. It stopped for a few years after 2019 but returned last year. Sullivan said this year’s first show will pay homage to someone very special who died this summer.
“Linda Abronski, who not only was a long-time member of our Hometown Holiday ensemble,” he said, “but she and I go all the way back to the start of New American Theater in Rockford, the company that I founded in the 1970s; and we went to Beloit College and just shared a deep friendship.”
He said it’s good to be home again.
“Especially at the holiday season, and to do it with a work of imagination, we hope, creativity and joy,” he said. “It celebrates not just the season, but you know the place and the people, you know, the town itself. That's our goal.”
Sullivan said it’s a joy to return every year and he loves the anticipation of the community as it waits to see if the show will return.
"J.R. Sullivan's Hometown Holiday" opens on Friday Dec. 13 at 7:30 p.m. The second performance takes place Sunday Dec. 15 at 3:00 p.m. Both will take place at the Rockford Public Library's Nordlof Center.
