BLUEBARN Theatre will host award-winning actress Theresa Sindelar, as she presents her one-woman cabaret on Sunday, July 12 at 6:00pm. All proceeds will go to assist Ms. Sindelar in attending workshops with the famed Second City in Chicago. Ticket prices are $15 for adults. Please call 345-1676 for reservations.
Theresa Sindelar is a familiar face to Omaha theatre-goers, having recently completed the role of "Mae" in Reefer Madness - the Musical, on the BLUEBARN stage. Theresa has also been seen frequently at the Omaha Community Playhouse, winning several Playhouse awards for her performances most notably, Bat Boy - the Musical, Mack & Mabel, Noises Off, Urinetown, Matt & Ben, Ruthless - the Musical, The Enchanted Cottage, Shakespeare in Hollywood, and Moon Over Buffalo.
Second City evolved from the Compass Players, a 1950s cabaret revue show started by undergraduates at the University of Chicago. The troupe chose the self-mocking name "The Second City" from the title of an article about Chicago by A. J. Liebling that appeared in The New Yorker in 1952. In 1959, the first Second City revue show premiered at 1842 North Wells Street and moved to 1616 North Wells in 1967. Co-founder Bernard Sahlins owned the theater company until 1985, before selling it to Canadian Andrew Alexander.
The style of comedy has changed with time, but the format has remained constant. Second City revues feature a mix of semi-improvised and scripted scenes with new material developed during unscripted improv sessions after the second act where scenes are created based on audience suggestions. A Second City innovation is the inclusion of live, improvised music during the performance.
A number of well-known performers, such as Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Martin Short, and Catherine O'Hara, began careers as part of the historic troupe and later moved to television and film. In the mid-1970s, Second City became a source of cast members for Saturday Night Live and SCTV, which borrowed many of the writing and performing techniques pioneered by Second City and other improv groups.
The BLUEBARN Theatre began in the late 1980s with graduates from the Professional Theatre Training Conservatory at the State University of New York at Purchase. Seeking to continue the deeply shared artistic aesthetic and practice that they had developed from their conservatory training, and also create theatre outside the constraints of New York City's commercial market, founding members Mary Theresa Green, Nils Haaland, Kevin Lawler, and Hughston Walkinshaw joined forces with Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts to produce their first play.In 1998, the 10th anniversary season, the BLUEBARN moved into its current home, a beautiful ninety-seat proscenium arch theatre in Omaha's Old Market. The BLUEBARN also opened the Abbott/Pinkoff Gallery, providing local visual artists a place to display their work.
Now in its 20th season, the BLUEBARN has established itself as one of Omaha's premier contemporary theatre companies. After producing over 80 plays since 1989, the BLUEBARN's reputation for high quality entertainment and pursuit of stories that challenge both the theatre artists and patrons is solid.
Theatre without boundaries...
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