by Warren Francke

* Ralston Community Theater brings back one of its own from Las Vegas to raise funds for next summer’s musical The King and I. Kara von Aschwege will leave the Grand Canal Singers at the Venetian long enough to star in The Last Five Years. She’ll play Cathy, looking back at the beginning of a relationship, opposite David Andino, as Jamie who is looking forward as a relationship ends. He performed the same role in the contemporary musical at Milwaukee Opera Theatre. The creation of Tony award winner Jason Robert Brown, the show opened in Chicago and played in New York City. It runs Jan. 28 and 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Jan. 30 at 2 p.m., at Ralston Performing Arts Center, 8969 Park Dr. Call 898.3545 to reserve the $25 tickets. Kara, whose mother, Kelly Aschwege, is RCT vice president, added “von” which grandpa dropped from their name. She played Rusty in Footloose at Millard South, where she won an acting award, but first performed at age 11 as one of Tevye’s daughters in the Ralston summer production of Fiddler on the Roof. She was working as a singing gondolier at the Venetian when word came of the tragic shooting at the school she graduated from in 2003. * I wanted but failed to mention everyone who made the Live Karaoke Broadway Night such a pleasure at the Omaha Community Playhouse, right up to its strong finish with Jim Boggess singing the title song from Cabaret. But one omission can be rectified here: Up steps Brenda Allacher in a saucy black hat and a black top decorated with a glitzy gold guitar. “Help me out,” the 70-year-old asks, then sails into “Jambalaya,” promising “big fun on the bayou.” We join in and she tells a bit of her story about being discovered by Johnny Cash. Like Mae West, she says, “When I’m bad, I’m better.” As Allacher tells it, she once was a backup singer for Boxcar Willie, and she headlined at the Golden Nugget from 1969-74. Oh … and she’s an honorary colonel in the Green Berets. All that plus crawfish pie in that “21 and Over” show. Cold Cream looks at theater in the metro area. Email information to coldcream@thereader.com.

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