No offense to directors intended, but I’m not usually influenced by their program notes. This time, though, Susan Clement-Toberer grabbed me with three words that closed her comments on the new Blue Barn play, Silent Sky. She wrote, “Send more sky,” the plea from playwright Lauren Gunderson’s key character, Henrietta Leavitt, who searches […]
The Sound of Music first played the Orpheum Theatre a few years before we saw Julie Andrews as the movie’s Maria in 1965…and almost every year for the next half century. And I’d interviewed the real Maria Von Trapp, so that up-close-and-personal impression of a tall, dignified woman with her gray […]
Lets not pretend that Jason Gross and Bill Gaus are your average theater-goers. They were far more prepared than most of us to enjoy the shows booked on Omaha stages in 2016. But their enthusiasm for live theater is a great starting point for looking back at the best the year brought to metro audiences. […]
Start with the songs from the greatest tunesmith in American history. He gave us not just the nostalgic title song and the others in this holiday musical now playing the Orpheum, but “God Bless America,” “Easter Parade” and hundreds more. And revisiting Irving is not even the best thing about […]
Operation Crucible shows four survivors of the Sheffield Blitz, the Nazi bombing of the British city known to the rest of the world for its cutlery but targeted for its vital steel-making in World War II. Those bare facts only scratch the surface of the humanity brought to life as […]
Shakespeare wasn’t thinking Cabaret but got it half right when he suggested, “All’s well that ends well.” In the case of the Sam Mendes conversion of the Kander-Ebb-Masteroff musical into an aptly sleazy and decadent Berlin at the dawn of Nazi genocide, all’s well that both starts and ends well. Not […]
If you liked past stage or film versions of Mel Brooks’ The Producers, you’re likely to love the Omaha Community Playhouse treatment. If you weren’t that crazy about it before, you’re still likely to love the Playhouse treatment. There’s something special about seeing hometown talents excel in a handsome setting […]
When a cult movie becomes Heathers: the Musical and one managed to not join the cult, one brings some skepticism to opening night at the Blue Barn Theatre. I mean, seriously, a musical where a high school kid in a black trench coat starts killing off the snooty clique queen and the jock bullies to […]
Much of the excitement in revisiting a great classic like Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera comes from anticipation of the most familiar favorite moments. But there’s also the hope of new discoveries, something you hadn’t really noticed before that adds to your appreciation of the musical. Both rewards were abundant in the […]
You might expect, given the fame of the film that preceded the play, the most memorable moments in Calendar Girls at the Omaha Community Playhouse to involve the middle-aged ladies undressing for their fund-raising photos. Instead, the nudity is so discreet that the “no front bottoms” demand by the least shy model (Jessie played by […]
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