Address | 6915 Cass Street Omaha, Nebraska United States |
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Coordinates | 41°15′50″N96°01′13″W / 41.263937°N 96.020336°W |
Website | |
www.omahaplayhouse.com |
The Omaha Community Playhouse, located at 6915 Cass Street in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, is a nationally recognized community theater.
Founded in 1924, the Playhouse's first president was Alan McDonald, architect of the Joslyn Art Museum, and its first play, directed by Greg Foley in April 1925, was The Enchanted Cottage , which starred Dodie Brando, the mother of Marlon Brando.
When, later in the Playhouse's first season, the need arose for a young man to play the lead for You and I, Dodie Brando suggested that twenty-year-old Henry Fonda, son of her friend Herberta Fonda, contact the director. [1] The Playhouse would later see the acting debut of Marlon Brando,[ citation needed ] Dorothy McGuire, and Julie Wilson, and appearances by Letitia Baldrige, Glenn Cunningham, and Lenka Peterson.
The Nebraska Theatre Caravan, the playhouse's touring unit, was founded in 1976. [2]
The Playhouse experienced tremendous growth throughout the 1980s and 1990s under the direction of Charles Jones.[ citation needed ]
Marlon Brando was an American actor and activist. Considered one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, one Cannes Film Festival Award and three British Academy Film Awards. Brando is credited with being one of the first actors to bring the Stanislavski system of acting, and method acting, to mainstream audiences.
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters that embodied an everyman image.
Peter Henry Fonda was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. Fonda was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Easy Rider (1969), and the Academy Award for Best Actor for Ulee's Gold (1997). For the latter, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Fonda also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999).
Lee Strasberg was an American theatre director, actor and acting teacher. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective". In 1951, he became director of the nonprofit Actors Studio in New York City, considered "the nation's most prestigious acting school," and, in 1966, was involved in the creation of Actors Studio West in Los Angeles.
Stella Adler was an American actress and acting teacher.
Richard Alva Cavett is an American television personality and former talk show host. He appeared regularly on nationally broadcast television in the United States for five decades, from the 1960s through the 2000s.
Gary Dale Farmer is a Canadian actor and musician. He is perhaps best known for his role as Nobody in the films Dead Man (1995) and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), and for his role in Smoke Signals (1998). In his career spanning over three decades, Farmer received three Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male nominations.
Beatrice Whitney Straight was an American theatre, film and television actress and a member of the prominent Whitney family. She was an Academy Award and Tony Award winner as well as an Emmy Award nominee.
Lenka Peterson was an American theater, film, and television actress.
Oxford Playhouse is a theatre designed by Edward Maufe and F.G.M. Chancellor. It is situated in Beaumont Street, Oxford, opposite the Ashmolean Museum.
Jocelyn Brando was an American actress and writer. She is best known for her role as Katie Bannion in the film noir The Big Heat (1953).
Henry Watterson Hull was an American character actor perhaps best known for playing the lead in Universal Pictures's Werewolf of London (1935). For most of his career, he was a lead actor on stage and a character actor on screen.
Film Streams is a nonprofit arts organization in Omaha, Nebraska which oversees two cinemas: the Ruth Sokolof Theater, in North Downtown Omaha, and the historic Dundee Theater, Omaha's longest surviving neighborhood cinema. It receives funding from corporate and individual donors, members, and the government.
Theatre in Omaha has existed since the founding of the city in 1856. Nationally notable actors have come from the city. There are active community theatres, and some theatres and acting companies have reached national prominence.
The culture of Omaha, Nebraska, has been partially defined by music and college sports, and by local cuisine and community theatre. The city has a long history of improving and expanding on its cultural offerings. In the 1920s, the Omaha Bee newspaper wrote, "The cultural future of Omaha seems as certain of greatness as the commercial future... The symphony orchestra, the Art institute, the Community Playhouse and other organizations are on firm foundations and Omaha is destined to be not only a bigger, but a better city, both financially and culturally." Reviewing Omaha's contemporary arts scene in 2007, the New York Times hailed the city as having "a kind of cultural awakening".
African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska are central to the development and growth of the 43rd largest city in the United States. Black people are first recorded arriving in the area that became the city when York came through in 1804 with the Lewis and Clark expedition and the residence of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable who lived at Fort Lisa for an extended period in 1810. There were also enslaved Black people at the Church of Latter Day Saints Winter Quarters in 1846. The first free Black settler in the city arrived in 1854, the year the city was incorporated.
Truckline Cafe was the title of a 1946 Broadway play written by Maxwell Anderson, directed by Harold Clurman, produced by Elia Kazan, and starring Marlon Brando and Karl Malden. The short-lived play ran only 10 performances and is best remembered today for the fact that each night Brando would run up and down a flight of stairs prior to an entrance to induce an effectively frenzied demeanor for one of the scenes. The cast also included David Manners, to whom Brando has attributed much of his subsequent success, and Kevin McCarthy. The play is noted for Brando's first major appearance on Broadway, during which he garnered attention for an unusually intense performance which presaged his later work on A Streetcar Named Desire. Truckline Cafe is also notable for being the first collaboration between Brando and Kazan, who later made A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata, and On the Waterfront together. The play also remains notable for being the first time Brando and Malden worked together, prior to co-starring in A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and One Eyed Jacks.
William Henry Redfield was an American actor and author who appeared in many theatrical, film, radio, and television roles.
The Enchanted Cottage is a romance by the English playwright Arthur Wing Pinero, written in 1921. The play opened on Broadway at the Ritz Theatre on March 31, 1923, directed by Jessie Bonstelle and William A. Brady, and starring Herbert Bunston and Katharine Cornell and ran for 65 performances until May 1923.