Omaha artist Josh Powell has spent the past month wrangling close to 100 artists together for what promises to be one of the city’s more memorable shows of 2011. Powell, with help from fellow Omaha artists Joel Damon (recently named curator of the Bemis Underground) and Kevin Rooney, pulled together a group of largely unknown […]
Posted inCulture
Opposites Attract
Polite society has a way of telling artists where to “draw the line” or not to “cross the line” in the name of political correctness, family values or so-called community standards. As if artists in all fields didn’t have enough to worry about in today’s economy. Whether they mark, speak, walk, write or toe that […]
Posted inCulture
The Felix In Me
There are times when a story may tell you more about the reviewer than what happened on stage. The opening of The Odd Couple at the Omaha Community Playhouse offers such an occasion. One reason the Neil Simon classic is among my favorite comedies is that I get to celebrate my inner Felix Ungar. For […]
Posted inCulture
Mind Your Q.
Mary Poppins is new to Omaha, but both the musical and the city are long familiar to one of its principal players, Q. Smith. Born here as Quiana and with the show for three years, she returns as the title character’s rival nanny. You might even say our hometown girl plays the villain. Mary sings, […]
Posted inTheater
Brigit, Odd Couple, From Shelterbelt With Love
* What sounds good when it feels like you’ve been pushing snow around every few hours? Sitting snug in an Irish pub with a bartender named Dev (Scott Kurz), sipping some stout and eavesdropping on Connor (Kevin Barratt) and Maeve (Laura Leininger) as they sort out life-changing decisions. It may not be snowing when Distant […]
Posted inNews
Invisible Wounds
When Jeff Miller returned from Saudi Arabia in 2003, he jumped feet first back into society. The staff sergeant and security forces specialist with the 363rd expeditionary security forces squadron did everything expected of him: got married; got a job; had two children. But something was wrong. He started having nightmares, flash anger — going […]
Posted inNews
At Ease
Vietnam War veteran and former Nebraska governor and U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey will be in Omaha Jan. 31 to salute At Ease, an Omaha program providing confidential behavioral health services to active duty military personnel and family members. Founded by Omaha advertising executive Scott Anderson, At Ease is administered by Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska. […]
Posted inFood
Sea Change
Everyone talks about the location of restaurants, but the space can be just as critical. Del Mare features a new menu from its days as Prestige World Class, but the largest change is the walls that have altered the size of the dining room. Prestige opened in 2006 in a 10,000-square-foot building at 169th and […]
Posted inMusic
World of ‘Wonder’
The title came first for the latest Plain White T’s album, The Wonders of the Younger . T’s songwriter and singer Tom Higgenson had just watched Cirque du Soleil’s “O” in Las Vegas when the phrase popped into his head. Higgenson says he didn’t quite know what the term meant, but he knew it was […]
Posted inMovies
Fact and Diction
Remarkably unremarkable and tonally mundane, director Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech was seemingly genetically engineered by a mad scientist named Juan Tan-Oscar. Quasi-historical and wholly predictable, the film would have been dismissible as icky chum for suit-wearing Academy sharks were it not for Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth. Their tête á têtes are more frosty […]