When All the Stars Align: Omaha Community Playhouse Centennial Brings Out its Stars

By Leo Adam Biga
Originally Published in “New Horizons”, April 2025 Issue
Republished with permission

Celebrating 100 years with the 2024-2025 season, the Omaha Community Playhouse (OCP) has a mission of opening the world of make-believe to everyone. True to its community-based model the nonprofit depends on volunteers to fill on-stage and behind-the-curtain roles. For a century now people from all walks of life, including professionals, students, homemakers and retirees, have put their ordinary lives on hold to make theater there. Some build and paint sets. Some work the box office. Others usher-greet. Still others act, sing, dance, stage manage. Few make it their livelihood. But a select few do use it as a stepping stone to theater careers. Some paths even lead to Broadway and beyond.

This centennial season some star alums and other Omaha talents who’ve found success in New York are helping the theater celebrate its centennial. On Feb. 1 two-time Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz (Rent, Wicked, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), who acted on the Playhouse mainstage and in the touring Nebraska Theatre Caravan, performed his Broadway, My Way revue as a tribute. Special guest star and Omaha native Pat Hazell, a comic, actor and playwright, joined him. Hazell’s one-man shows and plays have been produced at the Playhouse. In a rare dramatic turn, he starred in its production of A Few Good Men.

On April 5 Omaha native and Tony Award-winner John Lloyd Young (Jersey Boys) headlines OCP’s Century Gala nearly four decades after he played Young Scrooge in its A Christmas Carol.

All three artists credit the Playhouse with making a difference in their careers. Butz called it “foundational.” Lloyd, “formative” and “eye-opening.” Hazell, who grew up seeing shows there, then helped build flats and paint sets, before acting-producing at OCP, said, “I learned a lot.”

Other Playhouse veterans have offered congratulatory notes and reflected on its legacy. Omaha native Broadway veteran Q. Smith made her only Playhouse stage appearance in Oklahoma while still a North High School student.

“It was a cool experience,” she recalled. “Everyone was much older than me and very professional. I had a great time.”

Encouraged to audition for a Playhouse sponsored scholarship to study theater in college, she won it. She celebrates its century milestone with a mix of nostalgia, gratitude and admiration.

“For a community theater in the Midwest to have existed one hundred years is absolutely astonishing,” she said. “That says a lot about the programming and the community that supports them. Hats off.”

Before making it on Broadway, Omaha native Kevyn Morrow appeared in a Playhouse production of Godspell slated for the mainstage until the 1975 tornado ripped off the theater’s roof, causing the musical to be performed outdoors. Years after being displaced, this veteran of A Chorus Line won acclaim for his starring turn as Coalhouse Walker in Ragtime on the London stage. That prompted the Playhouse to invite this prodigal son back to reprise the role for its own mounting of Ragtime, which received raves.

He said coming back home to the Playhouse completed “a circle.”

Community Makes It Go

Resilience is a recurring theme in the Playhouse story, as it’s survived wars, economic crises and the pandemic. When health officials prohibited indoor events during the Covid outbreak the theater took a cue from its post-tornado experience to stage shows al fresco. Crowds turned out.

Enduring community support has gotten the Playhouse through thick and thin.

“That is a testament to first of all the culture of Omaha, Nebraska and the community,” said Young. “It’s testament of love. I mean, there is a passionate feeling of community around the theater. I remember as a kid the people loved being there. People really put their heart and soul into it.”

Executive director Rebecca Noble acknowledges the critical role community plays at OCP.

“The Playhouse wouldn’t be in operation today were it not for a community which values the arts and its role in our lives. We’re a sizable organization, with a sizable building, two theater spaces, broad programming, and a staff. It’s not lost on us that it takes a great deal of support to maintain the level of quality we’re known for, to provide meaningful and impactful experiences, and to maintain operations.”

Volunteers, she said, are its lifeblood.

“OCP has hundreds of volunteers who provide much valued support across multiple areas. We have over 300 volunteers in our front of house alone (box office, ushers, greeters). This has trended down over the past 20 years and a number haven’t returned post-pandemic. OCP isn’t alone in terms of the impact of the pandemic. Fortunately, our volunteer numbers have stabilized in the last two to three years.”

As arts organizations in a post-Covid world struggle to recapture patrons and to navigate diversity, equity. inclusion, accessibility issues, the Playhouse and theaters like it remain not only relevant but critical to developing new talents and audiences, Young said. “I think because it’s a community playhouse it’s more important maybe than a professional theater company because the doors are open (to everyone).”

He noted whereas most actors at regional theaters are professionals brought in from other parts of the country, at the Playhouse “your friends and neighbors are up there, so there’s more of a connection to the audience.” Added Young, “I think with these challenges theaters across the country face in attracting new audiences maybe the secret ingredient is more of that community involvement … actually community members being right up there on stage and really having skin in the game. Maybe that’s the secret to revitalizing theater in general. With a community theater like the Playhouse it’s baked in and maybe that’s its salvation and greatest strength.”

Full Circle and Paying it Forward

Young is happy to pay back what the Playhouse has kept giving him. Last fall the theater mounted Jersey Boys, the musical about pop singing sensation Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons that earned Young a Tony Award for his Broadway portrayal of Valli. He reprised the role in the Clint Eastwood directed feature film adaptation. “There’s nothing like a full circle feeling when you know in the centennial season of this place that gave you your start they did a production of a show you did first on Broadway. I mean, that blew my mind.” He promises Gala attendees will get their Jersey Boys fix when he performs hit numbers from the show.

Coming back to give back is a tradition at the Playhouse. Its first two star products, Nebraska natives Henry Fonda and Dorothy McGuire made their stage debuts there in the 1920s and 1930s, respectively. They returned at the height of their Broadway stage and big screen success to star in a 1955 production of The Country Girl. That show, which also marked the debut of Jane Fonda, raised funds for construction of the current Cass Street facility. Jane’s brother Peter Fonda acted there a few years later while attending Omaha University.

The Playhouse doesn’t take for granted former OCP artists returning, said Noble. “We’re always fortunate and humbled when they come home.”

As a theater kid at the Playhouse in the 1980s, Young took inspiration from photos in the lobby of legendary performers like the Fondas who preceded him there.

“I remember being really kind of enriched and energized by this history and the possibilities of a life in the theater.”

Dick Mueller and Terry Kiser, who shared an apartment in New York as struggling young thespians from Omaha trying to make it in the Big Apple, acted at the Playhouse when the Cass site was still new (the theater was previously on Davenport).

“The physical plant of the Playhouse is so inviting with that wonderful main theater upstairs and small theater downstairs. Having that intimate studio or black box space for rehearsals and experimental works was very innovative in that time. You could practically scratch somebody’s nose in the audience,” said Kiser, who went on to win an Obie Award off-Broadway and earn a Tony nomination on Broadway.

“What a great environment to start off as a young kid.”

Mueller said even today the Playhouse, long known as the nation’s largest community theater is a unicorn for its spaciousness, high production values, extensive educational offerings, and sizable subscriber base. His wife belongs to a group of former college theater majors who meet once a year in different cities. When it came Omaha’s turn,” he said, they reluctantly came from the East to what they considered flyover country. “We showed them Omaha and it really looked good compared to every other place we’d been. And one of the stops was the Playhouse. We got a tour. These people were blown away that Omaha’s got this unbelievable facility.”

Butz, too, was impressed by the amenities. He said whereas the typical community playhouse “is a little dinky theater, this is a whole other thing.” Its ambitious Caravan touring arm he acted in brought professional live theater to small town across the state, the Midwest, even to both coasts, that residents otherwise wouldn’t see. It operated for decades until disbanded in 2019 due to cost and liability issues.

Appreciations from alums are not lost on OCP staff.

“It means a great deal to us that the Omaha Community Playhouse has meant so much to them, and that they consider OCP part of their history as an artist,” Noble said. “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.”

Co-artistic director Susie Baer Collins said everyone who’s come through its ranks, whether on stage or backstage or front of house, is part of the extended Playhouse family.

Nostalgia and A Legacy Worth Celebrating

Henry Fonda referred to the Playhouse as “the little theater,” not pejoratively but in reference to its roots in the Little Theatre movement of the early 20th century. Though an aunt was involved in the early Playhouse he had no interest in being a part of it himself. He only got involved at the prodding of Dorothy “Dodie” Brando, a founding member and the mother of future Broadway-Hollywood star Marlon Brando. The story goes, oft-repeated by Fonda himself, that while home from college and with few prospects the shy but strikingly handsome 20-year-old was recruited by Dodie to assume the juvenile lead the theater struggled casting for an upcoming play, Merton of the Movies. She in effect pushed him on stage and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Fonda recalled being so fascinated with stagecraft, just as Young was years after him, that he changed his career plan from journalism to theater. After a season of theater making there Fonda left to continue his dramatic arts education on the East Coast, where he soon fell in with a group of young artists, including Joshua Logan, Margaret Sullivan and James Stewart, who contributed to his development. After leaving Omaha to hone his chops he returned to act opposite a prodigy, Dorothy McGuire, in the 1931 Playhouse production of A Kiss for Cinderella. Their appearance together anticipated the pair coming back two decades later, by then major stage-screen stars, for that Country Girl benefit run.

The Fonda-McGuire names became attached to Playhouse awards, programs and its black box theater. Each artist remained personally connected to the organization the remainder of their lives, particularly Fonda. He helped lead various fundraising campaigns. He attended a 1981 career tribute, An Evening with Mr. Fonda, the Playhouse hosted not long before he won the Best Actor Oscar for On Golden Pond opposite daughter Jane. He died shortly thereafter. His widow Shirlee Fonda has continued supporting its youth programs.

Before he opened the Firehouse Dinner Theatre in the Old Market Omaha native Dick Mueller was a busy actor on the local theater scene. Fresh from a season of summer stock and giving New York a try, he starred in a 1960s Playhouse production of Bye Bye Birdie.

“That’s where I started,” he said.

Then-artistic director Kendrick Wilson, he said, “was the guru at the theater.”

Mueller won the Fonda-McGuire Award for Man of La Mancha during the 1970-71 season. Some years later he had the pleasure of meeting the man whose name graced the award.

Kiser, who also worked under Wilson’s direction, appreciated the creative circle he fell in with at the Playhouse and other area stages. “Omaha gave me a great foundation for acting and I enjoyed so much just getting inundated with theater.”

Magic and Encouragement

Wilson’s successor, Charles Jones, helped lead the Playhouse during its greatest growth spurt in the 1970s, ‘80s and ’90s. He not only co-created its popular musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol that’s played to untold thousands but, with the Nebraska Arts Council, launched the Caravan that exposed thousands more to theater.

Butz feels “grateful” to have experienced the Caravan. “It was the first time I got paid to perform and I thought I had really made it.”

He and cast-mates toured Nebraska into Iowa putting on three distinct shows per stop. He also played Old Scrooge on the Midwest tour of Christmas Carol, making his debut in the role in his hometown of St. Louis before friends and family.

“An amazing experience.”

He credits his time with the Caravan and in other regional theater companies he went on to work at as giving him “the chops” to make it in New York.

“I wouldn’t have a career without it. My bread and butter was in regional theater.”

Not long before Butz acted there, Young was mesmerized by Christmas Carol.

“All the magic of creating theater was encapsulated in that show. I remember being fascinated with how it snowed on stage and Scrooge’s bed moving around thanks to stagehands in kneepads, and an elevator trap in the floor of the stage that Jacob Marley rose up through, lit with green light, to make him look like a ghost. The settings made it like a Christmas card (come to life). When the curtain came up the first song was God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. There was that whole tableaux, the entire cast on stage, and you’re transported to a (19th century) Christmas market. I’ve seen a lot of things over the years but I would say that production in my imagination certainly stands out as one of the most magical productions I’ve ever seen or been involved in.”

Young also acted in a Playhouse production of Medieval passion plays, Creations and Other Mysteries. “We turned that black box space into a Medieval fair for the pre-show, selling period food and trinkets. Both shows were conceived by Charles Jones who was such a talented guy and visionary.”

Young still remembers the encouragement that Jones, a rotund, genteel Southern gentleman, gave him.

“He had this sonorous, big voice and I remember he said to me, You’re a very talented player. It was one of the earliest encouragements I got. That just gave me such a warm feeling. Here I am nearly 50 and I still carry with me his words of encouragement all these years later.”