Star City Blog / Theatre & Film

'Crazy Heart' Held Over at The Ross

Due to popular demand, CRAZY HEART will continue at The Ross through Thursday, March 11.  Show times are available at www.TheRoss.org, by consulting your newspaper, or by calling the MRRMAC film information line at 402.472.5353.

Four-time Academy Award nominee Jeff Bridges stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film CRAZY HEART from writer-director Scott Cooper opening at The Ross on Friday, February 5.
 
Roger Ebert writes in the Chicago Sun-Times, “Jeff Bridges gives a powerful, moving performance.”

National Theatre Live: 'Nation'

A spectacular family production of Terry Pratchett’s NATION will be filmed live at the National Theatre in London on 30 January 2010 and broadcast by satellite to cinemas worldwide. 

Adapted by Mark Ravenhill and directed by Melly Still, NATION is an exhilarating adventure story of survival and self-discovery featuring live music, dance and extraordinary puppets, suitable for ages 10 and above. NATION follows the hugely successful broadcasts of Phèdre and All’s Well That Ends Well and, in many cinemas, will have matinee screenings.

'The Messenger' @ The Ross

Featuring tour-de-force performances from Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, and Samantha Morton, and a brilliant directorial debut by Oren Moverman, THE MESSENGER, opening at The Ross on Friday, January 29, brings us into the inner lives of these outwardly steely heroes to reveal their fragility with compassion and dignity.
 
"THE MESSENGER offers one of the most shrewdly perceptive portraits of military men to have appeared in American movies since such classics as From Here to Eternity and The Last Detail,” according to David Denby, film critic for the New Yorker.

Regional Premiere Brings 'The Marvelous Wonderettes' to Lincoln

From the award winning theatre that brought to the stage such shows as The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Gilligan's Island The Musical and Beehive comes a regional premiere that is sure to get your toes tapping! The Marvelous Wonderettes will open at The TADA Theatre Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.  

A recent hit in New York and L.A., The Marvelous Wonderettes takes audiences to the 1958 Springfield High School prom where we meet The Wonderettes - four girls with hopes and dreams as big as their crinoline skirts and voices to match!

The Haymarket Theatre Proudly Presents 'Man of La Mancha'

The Haymarket Theatre presents Man of La Mancha, the classic musical by Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion, and Mitch Leigh.  Man of La Mancha, directed by Bob Hall, opens at The Haymarket Theatre on Thursday, February 11 at 7:30 p.m. and plays through February 28.  

Man of La Mancha is the comic, but bittersweet story of Miguel Cervantes, a man who imagines himself to be the 16th century Spaniard Don Quixote, a chivalrous knight in armor from an era long past.  Follow Don Quixote as he sets out on a series of improbable adventures with his faithful squire, Sancho.  Funny, inspiring, and heartwarming, this musical is considered one of the finest scores ever composed for Broadway and features the classic hit “Impossible Dream.”

Review of 'The Magician's Nephew' at the Lincoln Community Playhouse

By Ladd Wendelin

Literary tastes seem to change all the time. Yesterday’s Harry Potter craze is today’s Twilight mania. Fortunately, C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, with its mythical lands and myriad of fantastical creatures, not to mention its healthy doses of religious allusions and symbolism, has found an enduring niche in the cultural consciousness. Despite countless adaptations of its stories for film and TV, in print form, the Narnia experience is hardly diminished for even the most youthful of readers.

This goes for theatre patrons (and critics) too.

Haymarket Theatre Offers Class About Acting for TV and Film

The Haymarket Theatre is pleased to offer a class in Acting on Camera. The class will be taught by Breanna Benjamin, who continues to have a highly successful career as a casting agent and personal manager. After living and operating in New York City for over thirty years she recently returned to Lincoln, her home town.

The class will cover the specifics of acting for TV and film, focusing on the on-camera audition process with an eye toward getting actors work, not only in local commercials, but in the increasing number of theatrical releases and TV films being shot in the Lincoln/Omaha area.

'Antichrist' @ The Ross

Always the provocateur but one of the most accomplished cinema artists of our time, Lars von Trier is driven to confront and shake his audience more than any other serious filmmaker working today. 
 
Gruesome, explicit, highly controversial, and a film of great beauty, ANTICHRIST, Von Trier’s art house horror film, opening at The Ross on January 22, is no exception.
 
“[ANTICHRIST] offers more proof, if we need any, that von Trier is one of the most accomplished cinema artists of our time, and also perhaps the most deeply trapped in his own head,” opines Andrew O’Hehir, film critic for Salon.com.

Review of 'Almost Liza' at the TADA Theatre

 By Sarah F. Sullivan

The TADA Theatre took on an unusual setting for their production of Almost Liza. Gone was the formal seating and the separation of the stage from the audience, replaced with black, round tables surrounded by chairs. Electric candles flickered cozily in glass containers on each of the tables, and the people sitting around them chatted and sipped their drinks provided by the bar in the back of the room. Shimmering gold and silver streamers encompassed the walls behind the small, intimate corner stage.

The original musical, Almost Liza, written by Donald Koor and directed by Robert D. Rook, follows the iconic Liza Minnelli as she performs one more show in one more night club. Sharing the stage with her most recent ex-husband David Gest (Curtis Moeller), Cris Rook’s Liza emerges from the wings in a flurry of energy and vocal chutzpah that carries from beginning to end. Liza sings some of her most famous songs, as well as a few extras, including “Islands in the Stream” and “There’s a Hole in the Bucket,” and in between, she reminisces about her colorful and often tragic life.

Met Opera Live in HD Continues with Bizet's Carmen

The fourth season of The Met: Live in HD continues on Saturday, January 16 at 1:00 PM/ET (12 PM/CT) with Bizet’s Carmen, starring Elina Garanca as the seductive gypsy, opposite Roberto Alagna as the obsessed soldier Don José. Acclaimed young

Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Met’s new production by Olivier Award-winning British director Richard Eyre, which features Barbara Frittoli as Micaëla and Mariusz Kwiecien as the toreador Escamillo in other leading roles. Christopher Wheeldon, artistic director and founder of Morphoses / The Wheeldon Company, created the choreography for the new staging.