This article appears in May/June 2015 Omaha Magazine.
ONCE
Orpheum Theater
May 13-17
Winner of eight 2012 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, Once is a truly original Broadway experience featuring an impressive ensemble of actor/musicians who play their own instruments onstage. Based on the Academy Award-winning film, it tells the enchanting tale of a Dublin street musician who’s about to give up on his dream when a beautiful young woman takes a sudden interest in his haunting love songs. As the chemistry between them grows, his music soars to powerful new heights, but their unlikely connection turns out to be deeper and more complex than your everyday romance.
The Oscar-winning independent Irish film, Once, was made for $150,000. Shot in 17 days, it went on to gross $20M worldwide, becoming a critically acclaimed international smash. It stars Glen Hansard, from the popular Irish Rock band The Frames, and Markéta Irglová. The duo won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Song with “Falling Slowly,” and the film won the Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Music. The soundtrack was also nominated for two Grammy Awards.
Orpheum Theater
409 S. 16th St.
TicketOmaha.com
liedcenter.org
The College World Series
TD Ameritrade Park Omaha
June 13-23/24
Call it Baseball’s Burning Man. There’s just nothing like it in the world of college sports: One city inextricably linked to the national championship of a major sport. For more than 60 years, college baseball players have had one goal each spring—to keep rolling down that “Road to Omaha.” For many it’s more a week-and-a-half-long vacation, a chance to leave the real world behind at the rebirth of summer and immerse in the unique rhythms and peculiarities of “America’s Pastime.” For 10 days (or 11 days if the 3-game championship series goes to a third game), Omaha adopts the spirit of the game, a vibe built on colorful people, bizarre superstitions, and a freewheeling festival groove. Baseball fans are cool. They’re laid back. They’re friendly. They’re master tailgaters. There’s a reason the series has stayed in Omaha all these years. It’s just hard to imagine any place doing it better.
TD Ameritrade Park Omaha
1200 Mike Fahey St.
Tickets from $30.
cwsomaha.com
Omaha Magazine’s Fried Food Festival
Presented by Storz Brewery
Lewis and Clark Landing
June 20
Partnering with Storz Trophy Room Grill & Brewery, Omaha Magazine’s Fried Food Festival promises lots of outdoor fun on Father’s Day weekend. Featuring everything for the fried food foodie, this festival will celebrate all things dipped and battered on the Lewis and Clark Landing from 1 to 6 p.m.
Bringing together street-style vendors, food trucks, and multiple beer gardens is a sure-fire way for dads to load up the calories and enjoy this special weekend. Sticking to a theme we think is only natural for a fried food festival, you’ll enjoy live country music while gobbling down such perfect—if funky—combos as deep-fried pickles and squid.
Enjoy the view of the riverfront while learning a twangy two-step or a do-si-do from professional line dancers. If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, you can try your luck on the mechanical bull. If a little liquid courage is needed, relax in one of the many beer gardens featuring locally brewed Storz beer.
But don’t forget to slather on the sunscreen and bring the kids to the fun zone featuring large inflatable obstacle courses. Admission is free, so bring dad, the kids, and yourself to Omaha’s only Fried Food Festival.
Lewis and Clark Landing
345 N. Riverfront Dr.
FriedFoodFest.com
Riitta Ikonen: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Leaf
Through June 27
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Myth, memory, and mysticism. Finnish artist Riitta Ikonen ties together all three, and she does so through long-term, multi-disciplinary projects that she creates alone or in conjunction with regular collaborators. Throughout her work, nature frequently acts as both content and context, with characters literally inhabiting the natural landscape or anthropomorphizing into it.
This is evident in several of the exhibition’s featured projects, including Ikonen’s acclaimed Eyes as Big as Plates series, which she created through an on-going collaboration with photographer Karoline Hjorth. Inspired by Scandinavian folklore, the series documents older inhabitants clad in the artist’s wearable costumes in remote landscapes around the world. Within the solitude of these places, her subjects become one with their surroundings, subtly underscoring the age-old relationship between people and nature.
While each of Ikonen’s projects differ in breadth and scope, at their core they all emphasize the deep and abiding connection as well as the silent, dynamic potential that exists between people and nature, the spaces they inhabit, and the experiences they share.
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
724 S. 12th St.
BemisCenter.org