Omaha Theatre 2016 Preview
Omaha theatre in 2016 has plenty of anticipation behind it. Perhaps the most anticipated storyline will be who the Omaha Community Playhouse finds to replace now departed Artistic Director Hilary Adams. Playhouse President Tim Schmad said the search will be completed before next season and that they learned a lot from their first search that led to Adams.
“I don’t think it will be as extensive as it was a couple of years ago,” Schmad said. “I think we’ve seen some people through our process a couple of years ago. We’ll evaluate all that and go from there. We’ve got some very good candidates. I emphasize that Hilary was a great candidate too, it just didn’t work out.”
With the search underway, the Playhouse marches on with Susie Baer Collins at the interim helm alongside Associate Director Jeff Horger.
This season’s remaining shows:
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Nora and Delia Ephron – January 22nd
Caroline, or Change – by Tony Kushner, music by Jeanine Tesori – February 12th
City of Angels by Larry Gelbart, Music by Cy Coleman, Lyrics by David Zippel – March 4th
Calendar Girls by Tim Firth – April 15th
Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods by Tammy Ryan – May 6th
The Producers by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan – May 27th
The Blue Barn Theatre has settled in nicely to their new space in Little Italy and have three shows left on their 27th season. Frost/Nixon will have political drama fans thoroughly entertained before switching over to The Christians, continuing the recent tradition of featuring scripts from the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, KY. The season will finish out with the 80s cult classic turned musical Heathers: The Musical. New to the season, the Porch Yard Staged Reading Series will have two more renditions with Rapture, Blister, Burn by Gina Gionfriddo on February 15th and Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn on April 4th.
This season’s remaining shows:
Frost/Nixon by Peter Morgan – February 4th
The Christians by Lucas Hnath – March 24th
Heathers: The Musical by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy – May 19th
SNAP Productions starts off the year with the uniquely-titled Mike Bartlett play C*ck, a comedy about a young man’s dilemma between his long-time boyfriend and the woman of his dreams. The show first premiered at the Royal Court Theatre of London in 2009. In May, audience members will check our Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, a play a woman balancing life, love, and an all-but-forgotten natural history museum.
This season’s remaining shows:
C*ck by Mike Bartlett – March 3rd
Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England by Madeleine George – May 26th
The Shelterbelt Theatre will open the New Year with Untitled Series #7 by Ellen Struve. The show describes itself as a romantic comedy set in Chicago’s art scene when a white lie sets off a Rube Goldberg machine of events pertaining to art, failure, divorce, failure, dating, and the internet. Noah Diaz will direct Celine Song’s play The Feast where people of the world are turned into reluctant vegetarians after all of the world’s meat turns to rot. The season will finish off with a celebration of female directors, playwrights, protagonists in the special event Shattering the Glass.
This season’s remaining shows:
Untitled Series #7: A comedy by Ellen Struve – January 22nd
The Feast by Celine Song – April 15th
Shattering the Glass: A Celebration of Omaha Women in Theatre – July 8th
The Rose Theater has plenty of shows packed into the first half of the year starting with the touring production of The Lightning Thief from Theatreworks USA about a young man and his interaction with creatures from Greek Mythology. Drastic Plastic shows up in February where a pair of siblings traverse over mountains and seas of plastic trash to find their parents. Late March showcases the young audiences edition of Honk! The Musical, the story of Ugly the Duck and his journey to self-discovery in a world where he just doesn’t fit. April shows off Elephant and Piggie’s We are in a Play, a show for ages 4 and up about a pair of unlikely animal friends sharing lots of laughs and life lessons. The season finishes out with the musical version of Disney’s classic Little Mermaid.
This season’s remaining shows:
The Lightning Thief – Jan 22nd
Drastic Plastic – Feb 26th
Honk! The Musical – Mar 25th
Elephant & Piggie’s We are in a Play – Apr 22nd
Disney’s The Little Mermaid – June 3rd
Other production of note in the first half of 2016:
Sive – February at Brigit St. Brigit Theatre
The Designated Mourner – February at Circle
Todd – March 11th at Chanticleer Theatre
Tom Jones – February 24th at Creighton University
Cloud 9 – February 24th at UNO Theatre
The Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth – June 23rd at Nebraska Shakespeare on the Green