04/15/2026
THIS SATURDAY NIGHT - 4/18
Sangamon Songs
Tom Irwin
https://events.ticketleap.com/events/sangamon-songs
The acclaimed show, Sangamon Songs: A Musical Play, comes to the Lindenwood Park Place on Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 7 p.m. Tickets are available online ($25) or at the door ($30). The performance combines songs, music, narration and a slide show into a two-act play lasting approximately 2 hours.
Sangamon Songs, originally created by Springfield, Illinois based singer-songwriter and performing musician Tom Irwin, as a 12-song cycle based on the 1893 diary of Harry Glen Ludlam, a teenaged boy who then lived on what is now Irwin’s family farm, was recorded and released in 2012. In 2018 playwright John W. Arden adapted the concept into a musical stage piece in collaboration with Irwin. Since the show’s debut in 2019 in Petersburg, Illinois, it’s played in several locations including performances in Springfield, Carbondale and Skokie in Illinois, along with a 2022 St Louis debut at the Gaslight Theater.
In the stage production Irwin narrates and sings the story of 16 year-old Harry, following his life for six months as documented daily in his journal while John Gifford Irwin plays the part of Harry through diary readings and singing. Along with a bare stage set of a few farming tools and a desk and chair, plus the addition of a slide show presenting diary pages and related images, the music ties the story together for what Willam Furry of Illinois Times called, “pure magic” in a 2022 review. Other musicians, including Owen Thomas Irwin on guitar join in performing the folk-based Americana songs.
