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Home - Culture
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Northern Laughs - |
Escanaba shines in the not-so-serious moonlight
by Warren Francke
Prepare to feel pity for a buckless Yooper. Especially if he’s a member of the Soady family.
Get used to hearing sudden whoops and outcries, especially after a Soady sees a mystical vision or gulps down sap whiskey. And don’t worry if all this sounds a bit weird.
Thanks to actor-playwright Jeff Daniels, his Escanaba in Da Moonlight at the Circle Theatre offers enough narrative exposition by the senior Soady, Albert (David Sindelar), to serve as a short course on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The UP, that is, whose natives thus become Yoopers, for whom the opening of deer season is the most important day of the year. |
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Cold Cream - |
Men direct two brilliant plays now running in Omaha. Having said that and promising more about them below, a pair of collegiate openings remind that we’re blessed with more than our share of outstanding women directors.
Moira Mangiamelli guides Creighton University’s cast of Dangerous Liaisons, which runs through Feb. 28, and Amy Lane directs the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Gross Indecency: the Three Trials of Oscar Wilde with Christopher Harris as the Oscar punished for the love that dare not speak its name. |
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Cold Cream - |
“I’ll tell you, dear ’arts,” as Teddy, the cockney manager, would say, the Faith Healer gives exactly what you’d expect from playwright Brian Friel and the Brigit Saint Brigit Theatre: Storytelling that grips you, gaining momentum after a slow start.
The surprise, dear hearts, comes from the smashing performance by Donald Seaman. His Teddy claims it’s all business between him and his artists, in this case “the Fantastic Francis Hardy, Faith Healer” played by Aaron Zavitz. But we don’t believe him. |
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The Passion of the Fashion - |
Fashion in Salvation struts giving, teamwork
by Jill Bruckner Robberts
Chances are, despite this winter’s epic cold, most evenings you’re able to retire somewhere warm, out of the wind and apart from the snow and slush.
Imagine if it were different — if you were homeless and broken, if you lacked shoes and a coat.
Equal parts inspiration, enthusiasm and outreach, Omaha’s Fashion in Salvation, hosted by J&A Clothing Co. and the Scoular Ballroom, seeks to raise funds and awareness for the area’s underclass, for homeless youths and adults, for children who wander the streets with neither supervision nor attention. |
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Rich Rewards - |
Fourth annual Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards changes venue, format
by Jill Bruckner Robberts
The spotlight will shine on some of the area’s best and brightest during the 2010 Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards Sunday, January 24, at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs.
Launched in 2007 to celebrate the accomplishments of the Metro’s rich and varied arts community, the OEA Awards offers artists, performers, musicians, actors, directors, dancers, designers, technicians and other creative types an opportunity to congratulate colleagues, support creative endeavors and receive recognition for outstanding contributions to arts in and around Omaha. |
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Old-School Rules - |
When it comes to
gamer gifts, new
isn’t always best
by Jarrett Fontaine
Why does a 23-year-old guy like me still play a Nintendo 64? Well, along with its ancient cartridges and lack of Netflix download capabilities, it has something else — charm. It was the first console I really embraced, with countless hours spent playing games like Super Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie and Mario Kart. I enjoy feeling like a kid and the nostalgia that’s involved with playing those kinds of games.
Now you might be wondering, hey man, where’s the Halo? The Call of Duty 7: Iran Insurgency? The Eddie Money edition of Rock Band? Call me crazy, but I like the old stuff. The coolness of Pac-Man, the portability of my Gameboy. |
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Object Obsessed - |
Film Streams, daOMA and Omaha Creative Institute collaborate
by Jill Bruckner Robberts
Good fortune, they say, comes in threes. Maybe that’s part of the reason Objectified, the second feature-length installment in director Gary Hustwit’s documentary design trilogy, is receiving such critical acclaim.
Featuring an intimate look at some of the industry’s best-known product designers, Objectified examines the creative energy powering “everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who reexamine, reevaluate and reinvent our manufactured environment on a daily basis |
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Media Matters - |
KANEKO’s Great Minds Series continues with prized journalists
by Jill Bruckner Robberts
In the view of Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and co-author of the widely acclaimed Half the Sky, some circumstances may be sadly unavoidable. Fortunately, the same situations can be changeable.
“I never really decided intellectually to push for change,” Kristof said. “It’s more that I saw kidnapped girls locked up in brothels, and thought: ‘I can use my column to fight against that.’ And I saw women dying in childbirth for want of a few dollars, and I thought: ‘Yes, I can change that.’”
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Weird Science - |
The next Science Café features docs
doin’ the robot
by Jill Bruckner Robberts
If you think your doctor is sophisticated, maybe you should meet his robot.
Dmitry Oleynikov, MD, FACS, University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), associate professor of surgery and director of the Center for Advanced Surgical Technology (CAST), is expanding the use of robotics in medicine.
Holding more than 11 patents, and recognized as a pioneer and expert in miniature robotic surgery, Oleynikov will be the featured speaker at a free, Nov. 10, Science Café event from 7-8 p.m. at Slowdown in Omaha. |
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Debatable Budgets - |
Why a nationally ranked UNO Forensics team struggles to make it to this year’s big event
by Jill Bruckner Robberts
If passion paid bills, and success fueled finances, UNO’s Forensics program would be one of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s most liquid assets.
The nationally ranked, competitive-speech team, impeded by budget cuts and minimal scholarship funds, faces a dilemma: Denying students participation, even as the program is gaining momentum and recognition. |
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Haunted House Investigators - |
The Reader sends a
dynamic reporting duo to scope Omaha’s haunted house scene
by Chris Aponick and
Dawson Fusselman
The problem with writing about how scary haunted houses are is that the writer is usually somebody like me — an adult cynic with little to no chance of being actually frightened.
At 25, I am out of the target audience for the metro’s haunted attractions. So, I talked The Reader into taking on another reporter. Someone with the proper experience and mindset to give a real view of just how Omaha’s scarefests will make you run for cover. That cub reporter would be my nephew, Dawson Fusselman.
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Top Shelf - |
Teens with Omaha ties take it ‘From the Top’
by Leo Adam Biga
Shades of old-time radio returned when the traveling circus “From the Top” came to Omaha last spring for a live Holland Performing Arts Center taping that drew 929. The National Public Radio broadcast showcases classical youth soloists, ensembles and composers selected via application and audition.
There’s also a PBS incarnation of the program, but Omaha got tabbed for radio, not the television version.
For the radio show, witty host and concert pianist Christopher O’Riley convenes with announcer Joanne Robinson and a caravan of producers, stagehands, audio engineers and guest artists to record shows at America’s great halls. |
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Thrown a Bone - |
Backstage with Jay Leno
by Kevin Simonson
Nearly five years ago, on the 50th Anniversary of “The Tonight Show,” Jay Leno announced he would step down sometime in 2009. Conan O’Brien took over NBC’s flagship program.
I was a Tonight Show guest a few years before Leno’s announcement. The call came late in the afternoon. The woman identified herself as Michelle, and asked if it was true that my brother, Mark, and I ate dog food.
Dog food? Hmmm, what a strange question … apparently a retired booking agent for Johnny Carson had seen an article about our company in the LA Times and notified Leno’s staff that my brother and I would make entertaining guests for Sweeps Week.
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Here Come The McMorrisses - |
Omaha newlyweds
duke it out on
the small screen
by Hal Senal
Former ’80s rocker, Pat Benatar, once made the claim that “love is a battlefield.” No truer words have since been spoken — just ask Kenny and Makayla McMorris.
The Omaha couple competed on season two of ABC’s, “Meet the Newlyweds,” a reality TV series that pit them against eight other couples.
When “Newlyweds” premiered in March 2008, airing through the end of July, the McMorrisses watched and played along. When a message on the screen asked for a new batch of couples to apply, Makayla decided to act.
“I was like, ‘Oh, well, let me apply!’ but I only ended up filling out half of the application because it’s like 30 pages long and sending in a picture, even though they asked for a video,” Makayla said. “I knew it was just for fun and I wasn’t gonna get too serious about it. Three weeks later, they were like, you know, ‘We’re interested in you guys. Can you please send in a video?’ That’s when it kind of got exciting; when we got a phone call.”
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