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 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 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” 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 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 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

Colonel’s Chicken: A Fairy Tale By: Joe Basque, Contributor   Welcome back, Ron. After completing his PhD at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and a teaching stint at Monmouth College in Illinois, Ron Zank has returned to the University of Nebraska-Omaha as an assistant professor of theater.  His directorial debut as faculty will be “Colonel’s Chicken: A Fairy Tale” by … Read More