Tony Award-winning actor Norbert Leo Butz remembers the start of his journey to Broadway. Fresh out of college in the early ‘90s, he set out with the Nebraska Theatre Caravan. The decades-long touring program run by the Omaha Community Playhouse gave many young actors their professional start.
They traveled the state, staging three distinct shows for different age groups on each stop. Butz also held an important role in the national tour of the Playhouse’s signature “A Christmas Carol.”
“I was so grateful to those places,” said Butz, who has appeared in Broadway productions of “Rent” and “Wicked” among others. “And I think it’s why I’ve been able to have as long a career as I have – I know how to deliver because I’ve had to deliver since I was 23 in the Sandhills.”
Butz’s story is common when it comes to the Playhouse, an Omaha institution with 100 years of history and a reputation that extends beyond the Cornhusker state.
It helped birth the careers of stars – from Henry Fonda and Dorothy McGuire to Butz and fellow Tony-winner John Lloyd Young. And despite some recent challenges, the nonprofit community theater remains an integral part of the area’s performing arts.
“They’ve always owned the theater scene in town,” said Dick Mueller, who acted there in the 1960s and early ‘70s before founding Omaha’s Firehouse Dinner Theatre. “It’s a big organization with a facility like no other in the country for a community theater.”
It also has a history that rivals many other community theater groups – a history that will take center stage as the Playhouse celebrates its 100th season, which continues with Butz’s performance of his “Broadway, My Way” concert on Feb. 1. Omaha native Pat Hazell, a comedian, writer and producer, also will perform that evening.
“Over the years I’ve learned a great deal from the Playhouse,” Hazell said, launching into a list that included set building, dancing and fencing – the latter for a potential role in “The Three Musketeers.”
“I didn’t get the part,” he said. “I can’t protect myself with a foil either.”
The Playhouse’s roots trace back to 1924 and the national “little theater” movement, which sought to ditch the structure and confines of large theatrical productions in favor of smaller, more experimental stagings. Several years later the Playhouse found its first physical location, beginning a decades-long journey of growth and influence.
By most measures, the Omaha Community Playhouse today is a super-sized community theater. It boasts a 520-seat main stage and a 200-seat studio theater, dozens of staffers, a multi-million dollar budget, hundreds of volunteers and dozens of productions per calendar year. It offers classes covering everything from vocal and acting techniques to stage combat, along with workshops and summer camps.
Countless people gained their first real exposure to theater at the Playhouse.
“I mean, it just reeked of creativity,” said Terry Kiser, a Tony nominee who acted at the Playhouse in the ‘60s. “Everybody was attracted to it. It was a joy to be a part of it.”
Co-artistic director Susie Baer Collins noted that many people still consider themselves part of the Playhouse family long after moving on. Social media pages are filled with tributes and reminiscences from alums.
And many of them, like Butz and Young, who will perform at the Playhouse’s April 5 Century Gala, come back to give back.
Young, who won a Tony for playing Frankie Valli in “Jersey Boys” on Broadway, said his three years performing in the Playhouse’s “A Christmas Carol” in the 1980s proved a formative experience. “Because all the magic of creating theater was encapsulated in that show. Certain stagecraft things were eye opening and fascinating to the little kid I was.”
The fact that the organization has meant so much to so many people means a great deal to the Playhouse, said executive director Rebecca Noble.
“We’re proud to have played a role as a training ground for many artists who have gone on to pursue careers in the arts – performers, designers, crew. … We’re always fortunate and humbled when they come home.”
The Playhouse earns plenty of “love and respect” from peers at national conferences, said Alex Rodriguez, co-artistic director. There’s also a good deal of intrigue surrounding the Playhouse’s steps in a post-COVID world, Rodriguez added.
Revenue and ticket sales are back to pre-pandemic levels, though folks are less inclined to buy season memberships. Front-of-house volunteers are harder to come by, but there’s no shortage of interest in on-stage and backstage roles. Veteran director Kathy Tyree is among those impressed by the Playhouse’s latest crop of talent.
That includes Karissa Danae Johnson, who starred as Deena in the Playhouse’s staging of “Dreamgirls” before moving to New York City to pursue acting. “The conditioning, training and love I received prepared me to be successful anywhere,” she said of the Playhouse.
Serious talent is often available here, Rodriguez said “because there’s not a regional scene in Omaha and so the Playhouse steps into that space sometimes” for highly trained or experienced actors. They also land college students and recent graduates who have formal training.
“There is a new group of performers who are that new heartbeat of the Playhouse,” Rodriguez said. “They’re giving great performances on our stages.”
COVID has just been one of the headwinds to batter the Playhouse in recent years.
The national tour of “A Christmas Carol” was canceled mid-tour after a bus crash in 2019. The 2020 tour was canceled due to the pandemic and it never returned. Rising costs and liability issues also led to the end of the Nebraska Theatre Caravan.
Like many theaters across the country, the Playhouse struggled navigating diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility expectations in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
It is still reeling from the previous regime’s attempt to cast a planned 2023 production of “In the Heights” with talent from outside Nebraska. Sources say the Playhouse offered out-of-state actors substantially more pay than its usual fees because then-artistic director Stephen Santa reportedly didn’t feel the local Latino community had a deep enough talent pool to fill certain roles.
At the time Playhouse had only recently started paying all cast and crew a modest stipend. The protests that followed the handling of “In the Heights,” both internally and externally, led the Playhouse to apologize and cancel the show. Santa and then-executive director Katie Broman later resigned. A perceived lack of transparency and accountability led other staffers to leave.
Neither Santa nor Broman responded to emails seeking comment.
Noble, Collins and Rodriguez stepped into leadership roles with a mission of mending fences.
For a theater that enjoyed longtime artistic directors, along with stable leadership at the top, it has been a disruptive time. The last few artistic directors each spent only a couple years on the job. Both Collins and Rodriguez plan to step away at the end of the current season.
“I think we’re learning a lot of things about who are the people that can pick up the baton here and understand its value from the past and where it might go in the future,” said Collins, a decades-long Playhouse veteran. “You can’t come in and just say, well, we’re going to do it this way now because that’s how the big people do it, because you’re asking this of volunteers as opposed to professionals.”
“It hasn’t been easy,” Collins confided. But she is confident that as long as new blood continues to discover the Playhouse it will keep stirring and forming future generations of theater lovers and makers. Few will make it a career, but that doesn’t discount the thrill of feeding their souls and moving audiences.
And in spite of the challenges, Collins noted the Playhouse does still have many of its strengths working in its favor: dedicated volunteers; a deep pool of talent; and a unique venue that allows for smaller, more experimental shows and a bigger stage for large productions. The Playhouse opens a regional premiere of the hit musical “Waitress” on Friday.
“We’re able to produce a certain scale of musical or play that’s bigger or more elaborate than you could make work in another theater in town and we feel very proud we can do that,” Rodriguez said.
At the end of the day, community support is what has allowed the Playhouse to endure through wars, economic collapses, extreme weather events and other disasters over the past 100 years.
Young felt it four decades ago. “There’s a passionate feeling of community around the theater. It’s a testament to love. The people love being there.”
And they still do, said Collins.
“People are pretty willing here to do whatever it’s going to take to keep us going,” she said. “We hope to make that audience, those patrons coming in the door reflect everything about our community.”
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