Blood at the Root By Joe Basque, Contributor Cedar High is your typical high school; a reasonably harmonious place where students interact in class and extracurricular activities, but tend to socialize within their own racial groups. Until Raylynn decides to shake things up. She becomes the first person of color to run for student council president and she spends a … Read More
“Tell Martha Not to Moan”
“Tell Martha Not to Moan” By: Joe Basque, Contributor In July 1967, a late night police raid on an unlicensed bar lit the fuse on a five day explosion of rioting and violence in Detroit. By the time it was over, forty-three were dead, over a thousand injured, two thousand buildings were destroyed, and the United States Army’s 82nd and … Read More
Company
Company By Joe Basque, Contributor Bobby is an amiable, attractive, single New Yorker. He is best friends with five couples, he has three girlfriends, and he is about to celebrate his thirty-fifth birthday. He seems to live a charmed life. So why is he so ambivalent? Audiences of the Stephen Sondheim musical “Company” have puzzled over just what makes … Read More
Sweat
Sweat By Joe Basque, Contributor Sweat by Lynn Nottage is set in a Reading Pennsylvania bar populated by steel workers, male and female, black and white, who watch helplessly as their lives are turned upside down by de-industrialization. The play opened off Broadway shortly before the 2016 presidential election. When the dust cleared, the New York Times wrote that … Read More
Theater Under the Stars
Theater Under the Stars by: Joe Basque Your opportunity to enjoy local theater under the stars continues this July at the SumTer Amphitheater, as the Papillion-LaVista Community Theatre (PLVCT) presents Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.” PLVCT has been producing summer musicals at SumTer for a dozen years now. If you have not attended a production, you are truly missing … Read More
Female Forward
Female Forward By: Joe Basque, Contributor Juno’s Swans has finally hit the big time. Sarah Lynn Brown, the interim artistic director for Nebraska Shakespeare, formed Juno’s Swans in 2016. Brown had recently finished performing Rosalind in the 2015 production of “As You Like It.” While a coveted role, she realized that this largest of female roles in the Shakespeare canon … Read More
Men on Boats
Men on Boats by Joe Basque, Contributor Jaclyn Backhaus first remembers learning about John Wesley Powell’s exploration of the Colorado River in her fourth grade history class. “My dad is very interested in explorer tales, and he had a copy of Powell’s journals that I would flip through as a kid,” she recalls. She returned to Powell’s journals as a … Read More
“Thank You 5”
“Thank You 5” By: Joe Basque, Contributor Daena Schweiger has spent over twenty-five years actively involved on and back stage, as a stage manager, actor, director, playwright, sound designer, and board member. You can now add “podcaster” to the list. On March 4, Schweiger unveiled her new local theater podcast, “Thank You 5,” with an interview of Camille Metoyer … Read More
The Wolves
The Wolves By: Joe Basque, Contributor In the summer of 2014, Sarah DeLappe attended an exhibition of contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa. She was moved by the thought of artists dealing with their daily political reality of suicide bombs and drones and civil wars, while she inhabited an entirely different world in the Bowery. On the … Read More
She Loves Me
She Loves Me by: Joe Basque, Contributor A down on her luck Amalia wanders into a parfumerie looking for a sales job. She dazzles the shop owner into hiring her on the spot, much to the consternation of Georg, the shop’s best salesman. The two rivals take an immediate dislike of each other, and in no time they can … Read More