Most of us would need help from our evil twin to catch all the theater openings the next two weekends. I’ll start with the one that closes quickest, RAIN: A Tribute to the Beatles, not only because it runs so briefly—8 p.m. Friday and two shows Saturday—but to see how the touring company compares with our home-grown treatment by Billy McGuigan.
Maybe the most striking claim for the John, Paul, George and Ringo named Steve, Joey, Joe and Ralph coming to the Orpheum is that they have “been together longer than The Beatles.” So it borders on the believable when Omaha Performing Arts boasts that “RAIN has mastered every song, gesture and nuance of the legendary foursome.”
You’ll have your own good reasons for wanting to see if that’s true, but I’m going to seek a cure for my troubling case of adult onset Beatlemania.
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Now that Chanticleer Community Theater has us worried about its future, how about everyone turning out to see Sex Please, We’re 60 while humming the Beatles’ “Will you still need me when I’m 64.”
Jonathan Wilhoft directs a cast of fems who don’t need to plead for pity sex but should make this an appealing farce about a Viagra-like pill to pump up the libido of menopausal women. Sherry Fletcher, D. Laureen Pickle, Terry DeBenedictis and Lorie Obradovich are joined by Ron Hines, Henry Mitchell and the return of the talented Jamie Lewis to the stage.
It runs through Nov. 27 on the east side of Council Bluffs. Call 712.323.9955 or visit manager@chanticleertheater.com.
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It gets crazy the weekend of Nov. 17-20 with everything from Tartuffe starting the Brigit Saint Brigit season at Joslyn Castle to A Christmas Carol returning to the Omaha Community Playhouse while the outrageous Christmas with the Crawfords comes back for SNAP! Productions and 12 Ophelias hits the University of Nebraska at Omaha. That’s a play by Caridad Svich subtitled “a play with broken songs.”
And this weekend you can still catch The Creepy Creeps of Pilgrim Road in the Holy Cross School gym, where director Roxanne Wach has Todd Brooks manning the music before turning his talents to those awful Crawfords. The creepy ones run 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.
One that got away: I didn’t get out to Red Oak, Iowa, to see CAUCUS! The Musical, but I’ll bet it was fine spoofing, even without Herman Cain to sing the title tune.
Cold Cream looks at theater in the metro area. Email information to coldcream@thereader.com.