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Home - Theater
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Late-Night Love - |
Shelterbelt sexes it up With Love
by Warren Francke
Maybe the last should have been first. If you add up the nine short plays at 8 p.m. and another half-dozen at 11 p.m., “No Strings Attached” was No. 15 in Shelterbelt with Love 9.
But it seemed to be the first to mention romance. Dan Baye was “Nerdy Man” visiting a virginal prostitute (Laci Neal costumed by Victoria’s Secret or maybe Doctor John’s which ran an ad below the play’s listing).
Nerdy brought flowers, and wanted only romance. The wannabe hooker wanted only sex, which gave her more in common with some of the other plays populated by characters more into sex than love. |
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Sardines! - |
Noises Off is full of
laughs at the BLT
by David Williams
“My, people come and go so quickly here!”
Dorothy’s memorable observation from a certain over-the-rainbow cinema classic could be just as easily applied to Noises Off, the hilariously fast-paced British farce running for one last weekend at the Bellevue Little Theater.
With six doors, a window and four additional passageways for rapid-fire comings and goings, there’s a staggering array of action to track, especially when those doors are so deftly employed in a series of precision-timed entrances and exits that leave the near-miss actors forever in a state of almost-but-never-quite bumping into each other. |
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Gotta Have Faith - |
Brigit Saint Brigit delivers Irish drama
by Warren Francke
Brian Friel’s Faith Healer has challenged such accomplished actors as James Mason, who was panned, and more recently Ralph Fiennes, who was praised. The Brigit Saint Brigit Theatre has Aaron Zavitz in the title role, and director Cathy Kurz says, “I wouldn’t do this play without him.”
Maybe “challenge” isn’t quite strong enough. As Frank Hardy, Zavitz opens the play with a monologue, he closes the Irish drama with a second monologue, and never interacts with the other two players, Mary Beth Adams as Frank’s wife, Grace, and Donald Seaman as Teddy, his cockney manager. |
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Cold Cream - |
Okay, maybe I picked Cheaper by the Dozen from all the plays running last weekend because the Omaha Community Playhouse is just three blocks from my house. Or because basketball great Dean Thompson, a former student of mine, was presiding over its sponsorship by Continuum Worldwide, which put on a big preview-night spread.
The weather was nice enough to drive all the way to Olde Towne for a look at talented Therese Rennels in Bellevue Little Theatre’s nutty Noises Off, but it might have been distracting with Cathy Hirsch playing the character who usually parades around in pink panties. |
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Extra Cream - |
I moved to New Hampshire from Nebraska two years ago and I’m always looking for reminders of my time in the Midwest. So when I found out that a college campus in western Massachusetts was producing a play about Nebraska, I had to check it out.
The play, 1905, examines the experiences of immigrant homesteaders settling the Great Plains a century ago in search of land and a better life. The pioneers struggled to integrate their customs and adapt to new technologies, issues that still challenge today’s immigrants. |
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The Art of Collaboration - |
World-renowned dance group Pilobolus
brings collaborative dance to Omaha
by Jasmine Maharisi
Forty years ago, our country experienced a profound revolution that swung the social pendulum from “I” to “us.” We all know the story: free love and Woodstock, long hair and peace symbols. It was good while it lasted but the world has changed.
Or perhaps it hasn’t changed as much as we think. World-renowned dance company Pilobolus is testament to that. Formed in 1971 in Connecticut, the dance group is proof that the era’s emerging philosophy of unity and collaboration has stood the test of time. And on Saturday night, Omaha will have the opportunity to experience what Amsterdam, London and even the Queen of England have already experienced: the art of collaborative dance. |
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Cold Cream - |
When this space was devoted to the good fortune of theaters that weren’t running on those wicked winter nights, we neglected the fact that all those shows opening last weekend and this weekend were rehearsing on days that demanded an Iditarod determination.
In the case of Cheaper by the Dozen now starting at the Omaha Community Playhouse, director Judith K. Hart was driving from Lincoln, and 10 young people were joining Ron Chvala as the efficiency-expert father and Dawn Buller-Kirke as their mother, with Virginia Kincaid as “the very precise Miss Brill.” (The rest of the dozen are babes sleeping upstairs.) |
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Madame Ovary - |
BroadStreet Theatre tells two-dozen tales of
feminine force
by Warren Francke
When women jump off trains and out of planes, stage a “pee protest” or stand up to anyone from rapists to male chauvinist pigs, That Takes Ovaries, says the title of the latest BroadStreet Theatre production.
Add the subtitle, Bold Women, Brazen Acts, and the bottom line on the postcard which promotes the play by asking, “How Big Are Yours?” If that doesn’t have you boasting, “Elephantine!” you still may buy into another pitch that promises this “ultimate girls’ night out will have you shouting, ‘You go, girl.’” |
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Cold Cream: Theater News - |
Somewhere out in Theaterville, news that Shelterbelt had postponed its Instant Theater weekend until April 2-3 must have inspired a few producers to sigh, “There but for the grace of God and good timing go I.”
Fortunately for Chanticleer’s Barefoot in the Park and BroadStreet’s That Takes Ovaries, openings arrive this weekend, not during the minus-40 wind chills of last week. And the touring cast of Little House on the Prairie missed our bone-chilling blizzard by a few days, but will find us empathetic when the Ingalls family faces winter hardship. |
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Pa’s Prairie - |
Little House makes
big splash into
Omaha this week
by Warren Francke
The Beast married Babette the Feather Duster and now tours as Pa Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie the Musical. But because Ma Ingalls is Melissa Gilbert, famed from playing Laura Ingalls in the television series, you haven’t heard as much about Pa.
That’s despite Steve Blanchard’s 11-year run in Beauty and the Beast, mostly in the title role. “It was a total aberration” after more than a decade of touring, “to be in one show on Broadway for 11 years,” he said.
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Cold Cream: Theater News - |
It’s a long shot, but I’m predicting the Blue Barn will cast Ndamukong Suh in its next show, Hot ‘n’ Throbbing, though his role with the Cornhuskers makes him a better fit for Brigit Saint Brigit’s Faith Healer at the end of January.
Okay, that’s not exactly a prediction. Nor is it forecasting to suggest the new year opens with a contrast between the new and familiar: Chanticleer gives us the familiar Barefoot in the Park and Mary Carrick’s BroadStreet Theatre offers the new That Takes Ovaries: Bold Women, Brazen Acts, where the ladies swing their huevos. |
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ART - |
Openings
ART FARM, 1306 W. 21st Rd., near Marquette, 402.854.3120, artfarmnebraska.org. NOW ACCEPTING RESIDENCY APPLICATIONS: Deadline for residency applications is March 15, 2010, visit artfarmnebraska.org for more information.
BLUE POMEGRANATE GALLERY, 6570 Maple St., 502.9901, bluepom.com. CLOSING DEC. 25-JAN. 5: Blue Pomegranate Studio will be taking a small vacation for the “elves”!
HILLMER ART GALLERY, College of St. Mary, 7000 Mercy Rd., 399.2400, csm.edu.
GALLERY CLOSED FOR HOLIDAY: Gallery is closed from Dec. 21-Jan 10.
SHELDON ART GALLERY, 12th and R, UNL, Lincoln, sheldonartgallery.org. CLOSING DEC.
21-JAN. 4: As part of a construction project to improve the safety of the staircase railings in the Great Hall. |
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They Got the Beat - |
Beatlemania ensues at the Playhouse with
Yesterday and Today
by Warren Francke
It’s not a bad gig: singing the Beatles songs their dad taught them, filling the house and getting lotsa love from a lively audience.
For Billy McGuigan and younger brothers Ryan and Matthew, the music began in Bellevue, growing up poor, as Bill puts it, “on government cheese.” It didn’t stop when their military father died of leukemia at age 42.
They sang the Beatles at home that very day, and Billy sang “Let it Be” at the funeral. Now they again sing together in their Yesterday and Today show at the Omaha Community Playhouse. And they still “can’t hear certain songs without thinking what dad would say.”
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COLD CREAM - |
* Red Light Winter, the new Skullduggery drama playing downtown, reminds of past Baby D productions in that tiny space in Benson. A powerful script combined with three strong performances, realistic and intimate.
But only six women and this writer were watching on Friday night. As promised by producer Andrew McGreevy, the nude sex scene in Act One was dimly lit and handled with care. On the other hand, the fully dressed sex scene in Act Two was brightly lit and brutal. |
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Two for Review - |
Review of two musicals: Rent and What’s Goin’ On
by Warren Francke
There are good reasons to review most performances, and encouraging readers to attend a show is usually one of them. Not this time, not for the musical Rent.
It was a hot ticket before the SNAP! production opened at the Shelterbelt Theatre, and then word-of-mouth sent seats flying so fast that five shows were added. By the time you read this, you may be too late.
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COLD CREAM - |
Now that the saga of Skullduggery seems to have settled into relative stability, let’s give the dramatic ambitions of Andrew McGreevy more attention. Demand for his second production in a season delayed by the search for a proper location required an added performance last Sunday, thanks partly to the familiarity of the “Peanuts” characters in Dog Meets God.
Now he opens a lesser-known but intriguing play, Red Light Winter, in what he expects to be a “permanent” venue, downtown at 222 S. 19th St., Suite 320, not far from the Rose Theater and next door to the Nebraska Film Group. |
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Tomorrow, Tomorrow - |
In an economic climate that the Congressional Budget Office said could be the worst since the Great Depression, a message of hope and optimism is timely and refreshing. The production of Annie: The Musical at The Rose delivers this message with the passionate enthusiasm of its youthful cast and the infectious charm of its classic, memorable songs.
“We’ve done this play on two previous occasions since 1985,” explained Rose Artistic Director James Larson, “but this time things in the play sound just like listening to the evening news today. In fact, early on I thought it would be fitting to change several things in Annie and instead of FDR have Barack Obama, and set everything in 2008 or 2009.” |
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COLD CREAM - |
* The ancient rules of critical writing haunt me when I try to comment on holiday horror spoofs, so share my torment as I struggle with Silent Night of the Lambs, the latest “adult comedy” at the Blue Barn.
Isn’t it odd that the most juvenile stuff is labeled “adult”? See, I’m trying to enjoy this naughty nonsense but years of literary brainwashing have me taking it far too seriously. So I’ll take another tack:
If a fine actor like Bill Hutson considers it a hilarious script and is willing to play a cannibalizing Kristopher Kringle a la Hannibal Lecter, who am I to fret about it being the most disjointed in the Barn’s long line of seasonal looniness? So what if its musical highlight is really strong stuff by Bailey Carlson as Hannah Montana — and almost nothing else? |
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Silence of the Spoofs - |
Blue Blue delivers
another delightfully naughty noel
by Warren Francke
The least traditional of traditions returns to the Blue Barn this weekend. Director Hughston Walkinshaw is back and preparing another antidote for anyone suffering an overdose of holiday sweets
The tradition started with Reform School Timmy, and who can forget (try as we may) Little Nellie’s Naughty Noel? This time yuletide naughtiness borrows from Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer and Hannibal Lecter in Silent Night of the Lambs.
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Cold Cream - |
* There are many great moments in theater, but none greater than the climactic breakthrough in the education of Helen Keller. “Greater,” of course, is too blandly general a term for what takes place at the pump in William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker.
And if “uplifting” sounds too sociological. Call it a triumph of the human spirit or what you will, when the water pours forth and the deaf-blind girl finally connects words to things, the audience at the University of Nebraska at Omaha holds its collective breath, tempted to shout “Hallelujah!” |
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