Big News: Osage County and Retiring Directors

by Warren Francke

August promised to be all about the most acclaimed drama of the decade, August: Osage County. I made plans months ago to return from the cool heights (8,400 feet) of our summer getaway to see the hottest season-opening play in memory.

The excitement was shared by actors. They swarmed auditions last year when the Tracy Letts play that won both Tony and Pulitzer prizes was presented as a staged reading for the...

Get Acquainted with Annie Baker

by Warren Francke

Add this to your “timing is everything” list. FAUST (Fine Arts University Student Theatre) will better acquaint us with the work of Annie Baker, just a week before her play Aliens would have been overshadowed by a huge opening at the Playhouse.

Its second weekend will compete with August: Osage County, the award-winning dark comedy by Tracy Letts. So I’m declaring this Annie Baker Week in Omaha if only to...

Belt Busy with Instant Plays & Quiche-Eating

by Warren Francke

If the Theatre Arts Guild gave a TAG award for the most interesting way to end July and enter August, it would go to the Shelterbelt Theatre and its leaders, Craig Bond and Ellen Struve.

The Belt jumped from Crash! Boom! Pow! to Instant Theatre Boot Camp and the remounting of 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche.

After the Ben Beck/Molly Welsh play, writers were paired up last weekend to write 15-minute plays for casts...

Don’t Let “Theater” Be Coupled with “Tragedy”

by Warren Francke

You might have been sitting in a theater last Thursday night enjoying Crash! Boom! Pow! or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf or in the outdoor amphitheater watching the Papillion-LaVista musical Annie Get Your Gun.

And you might have been home by the midnight hour when Friday came and cast a shadow over the very word theater as it appeared on television screens in bold headlines: Theater Shooting. Aurora Theater...

Season’s Funniest Play Tenor, Tartuffe or?

by Warren Francke

In less than a week, Theatre Arts Guild voters must pick their favorites from 150 or so nominees in 39 productions. I saw 30 of the 39, and many others that weren’t nominated, including some that were badly neglected on the ballots.

Of the three funniest plays I saw, only Lend Me a Tenor (Omaha Community Playhouse) received appropriate recognition, with nods for best comedy, director, two lead actors, a...

No Woolf Fear for Marr and Markey

by Warren Francke

As the summer musicals blossom in the burbs and comic book characters pack onomatopoetic punches at the Shelterbelt, the Circle Theater asks the question, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Apparently Mike Markey and Laura Marr fear not the Edward Albee classic because they’re playing George and Martha, the acid-tongued couple once performed by Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. Director Denise Chapman also has Haley...