Ken Bradbury’s Couplings returns to Jacksonville for youth arts fundraiser

Ken Bradbury’s Couplings will return to Jacksonville after an eight-year hiatus, with three performances set to raise money for youth arts. The reader’s theater production will play at Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church on Friday and Saturday, July 10 and 11, at 7 p.m., and again on Sunday, July 12, at 2 p.m.; admission will be $10 at the door, and all proceeds will go to The Ken Bradbury Foundation to support music and theatre programs for area youth.

The run will take place at Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church, 1447 Merritt Rd., Jacksonville, a familiar neighborhood landmark on the city’s east side. The church’s directory lists its main service time at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays and School Time at 10:45 a.m., and the production will keep the weekend traffic on Merritt Road rather than in a downtown theater district.

The cast will bring together 15 local performers: Keith Bradbury, Frances Brockhouse, Ed Cannon, Ginny Fanning, Bentley Gray, Tammy Guthrie, Terri Kimler, Kevin Klein, Avery Leonard, Audra Nelson, Max Nelson, Mike Schneider, Drew Snodgrass, Lily Snodgrass and Roger Wainwright. As a reader’s theater show, Couplings will lean on voices and storytelling instead of a full stage build, which makes it a practical community production for a large volunteer cast.

The revival also fits into Jacksonville’s summer arts calendar and the county’s broader live-event economy. The Ken Bradbury Foundation promotes and produces Bradbury’s work, while also supporting local nonprofit organizations and local theatre, so the show will function as both a ticketed event and a fundraiser that sends money back into the youth arts pipeline. Bradbury’s ties to the area run deep: Illinois College says he graduated in 1971, taught at Triopia Jr. Sr. High School for 35 years, and founded Green Pastures Camp for the Performing Arts, which hosted more than 400 students each summer for more than 30 years. The Illinois Center for the Book says he was born in Quincy in 1955, raised in Perry, and later claimed Arenzville as another hometown. That history gives the July return a clear purpose beyond nostalgia, with a local playwright’s work moving back into a church setting that has long supported community events.