Friday, March 28 | Directly following the show
Moderator: Carrie Nath
Seattle-based advocate Jim Benson is an author, teacher, and business consultant. Originally from Omaha and raised in Grand Island, Jim played a pivotal role in the NAMES project and the AIDS memorial quilt. Considered the largest community arts project in history, the AIDS Memorial Quilt helps us remember the unique lives and stories of those we’ve lost to HIV/AIDS. Join Jim in discussion based around this epic piece of remembrance.
BLUEBARN is honored to display sections of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt during the run of the production.
Saturday, April 5 | Directly following the show
Moderator: Carrie Nath
One of the greatest myths perpetuated by those who want us to remain silent is our voice does not matter. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Say it Loud and Say it Proud. Queer is Here and We’re Not Going Anywhere! Join these activists and advocates as we dive into the past, bring it into the present, and envision the future for Queer Americans and their allies.
AfterWords Participants:
-Christian Negron, Featured Performer, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me
-Sue Hennessy, former NYC Queer Nation Pink Panther Patrol, affiliate of ActUp and current Community Activist
-Jay Hayden, Teen Programming Coordinator, The Rose Theatre, Trans Rights Advisory Team for ACLU Nebraska
-Lynne, PFLAG and River City Mixed Chorus board member, LGBTQ Community and Youth Coach
April 17-19 | All Night Long!
Locations: SIPS on 10th, Tiny House, The Platypus, Fizzy’s, Via Farina, Flixx Lounge, BLUEBARN, and more TBA!
Gallop up and down 10th and 13th streets as we tip our hats to self-acceptance, self-love, community, chosen family, and queer joy. Whet your whistle with a signature drink and git ready to ride. Round up the Pink Ponies at each location and post with pride as you pay it forward: A portion of the proceeds from each signature drink will go to support LGBTQIA2S+ youth in Omaha through PFLAG. Learn more about PFLAG at pflag-omaha.org.
Scoot Your Boots, Saddle Up, and Enjoy the Ride!! YEEEEEE-HAAAAAAW!!
Saturday, April 12 | 6:30pm
BLUEBARN Porchyard
Host: Carrie Nath and Jay Hayden
Pride Players is a teen theater troupe at the Rose Theater in Omaha that uses improvisation to create a theater piece about being a gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, queer, or straight allied teen in Omaha. The troupe will share a few pieces from their 26th annual performance, with a short talkback to follow about creating queer theater and issues affecting queer youth in the modern climate. Come celebrate the voices of this generation!
Book selection curated by director Susan Clement and our partner The Next Chapter
March 27 – April 19 | BLUEBARN Lobby
David Drake dreamed of a future where anyone can walk anywhere, hand-in-hand, without condemnation or fear. Dive into any one of these great reads in honor of those who have come before and inspire yourself as we move forward. We Will Never Forget Those We Have Lost. We Will Never Stop Fighting for Those Who Are Here. We Remember. We March On!
All proceeds go to support Next Chapter Books | Payment accepted: Venmo
PAINT!
Aaryan Naik
March 27 – April 19 | BLUEBARN Lobby
Featuring Visual Work by: Ang Bennett, Nathan Brumbaugh, Harrison Cook, Jordan Ramsey Ismaiel, Alex Jochim, Jennifer Lentfer, Alicia Lopez, Jae Meyer, Aaryan Naik, Peyton Pearson, Alexandra Splittgerber, April Vendetta, Zaleski
Featuring the artwork of over 10 diverse LGBTQ+ artists, Be/Longing explores authenticity, self-love, transformation, and celebrates the journey to belonging. Through visual lullabies, meditations, and laments, the exhibit traces the complex path of queer self-discovery, love, and pride.
The gallery will be open to the public 45 minutes before each show and during box office hours (Monday-Friday 10 am-4 pm) in the BLUEBARN Lobby.
Featuring Curator Jared Spence and Artist Ang Bennett
April 19 at 6:50 | BLUEBARN Lobby
BLUEBARN is honored to display sections of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt during the run of the production. The Quilt was first displayed during the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987. The quilt would tour and grow in size and by 1992 would include panels from every state and 28 countries. The last display of the Quilt in its entirety was in 1996 when the Quilt covered the entire National Mall in Washington DC. Today, the AIDS Memorial Quilt is an epic 54-ton tapestry that includes nearly 50,000 panels dedicated to more than 110,000 individuals. It is the premiere symbol of the AIDS pandemic, a living memorial to a generation lost to AIDS and an important HIV prevention education tool. With hundreds of thousands of people contributing their talents to making the memorial panels, and tens of thousands of volunteers to help display it, the Quilt is considered the largest community arts project in history. More info at aidsmemorial.org.
Through the lens of cross-cultural communication, BLUEBARN creatives will work with University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) Goodrich Scholars to explore the ghosts of our past, how they haunt our present, and what we owe the future. How do we atone for our inheritance? From the page to the stage, we will craft our own stories and in sharing them, come to a deeper understanding of the importance of acknowledging our history, repairing the past, and creating a truly equitable future.
The Goodrich Scholar Program is a specialized two-year writing-intensive humanities and social science core curriculum that emphasizes cultural and intellectual exploration within our local and global communities. Many scholars are the first in their families to attend college.
All participants will attend the performance for free through BLUEBARN’s Radical Hospitality and UNO’s Service Learning Academy.
Saturday, Feb 15 | Directly following the show
Moderator: Beaufield Berry
Featuring Guests: Portia Burch
A brilliant marriage of the past to the present, Appropriate asks us all to wrestle with the consequences of our actions. What do we, most specifically those who are privileged, owe folks who bear the weight of systemic oppression? Especially in this current cultural climate.
Portia Burch is a Black queer activist and Omaha native currently living in Chicago, with a specific focus on anti-racism work, decolonizing, and abolition. Portia was activated by the murder of Michael Brown, Jr. and the subsequent protests and riots in Ferguson, MO. As consciousness shifts towards reckoning with racism and white supremacy in the world, Portia is working to create spaces that are just and equitable as a way to build communities that are focused on healing and growing. She does this by curating and nurturing spaces to unlearn and decolonize behaviors that have upheld racism and white supremacy culture.
Her priority is and will always be the uplifting of Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of the global majority. She is intentional in her work so that people working to be active anti-racists and social justice accomplices understand that by making the groups they advocate for their priority, the decolonization becomes a natural act and creates effective change.
Saturday, Feb 22 | Directly following the show
Moderator: Beaufield Berry
Featuring Guests: Portia Burch
Appropriate brings many questions to mind around the topics of atonement and reparations. Join the cast and creatives of this production to talk about what they have learned and what they will take away from this experience. How do we empower ourselves to be a voice of justice in our world?
Curated by Josh Brown
All art proceeds go directly to participating artists. The exhibit will be open to the public 45 minutes before each show and during box office hours Monday-Friday 10 am-4 pm in the BLUEBARN Lobby.
Feb 16 | 1:30 pm, before the 2:00 pm show
In order to take responsibility for our history we must own our past, be vigilant in the present, and commit to an equitable future. You can start with this collection curated by Appropriate Dramaturg, Beaufield Berry. “Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Maroon Tiger”, Jan 1 – Feb 28, 1947.
BLUEBARN is proud to continue its partnership with Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging (ENOA), now in its 17th year! Ornaments bearing the names of local elders in need will be on sale on the Giving HeARTS Tree located in the lobby. Become an elf for the elderly by fulfilling holiday gift needs for seniors in the region.
Curated by Jared Spence
This playful, edgy, and whimsical gallery will be open to the public 45 minutes before each show and during box office hours, Monday-Friday 10am-4pm, in the BLUEBARN Lobby.
It’s the holidays. Make yourself some cocoa, sit back, and relax in front of the fire with a classic tale of Yuletide Terror. A little taste of Holiday Horror. Perhaps a fine chianti and a Hannibal tetralogy. Or a jaunty jig to the Twelve Terrors of Christmas. Pour a nightcap and throw another log on the fire. Ohh…Do you hear that, Clarice? That’s the sound of never sleeping again….
Dacre Stoker is the great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker and the international best-selling co-author of Dracula the Un-Dead (2009), and Dracul (2018). Dacre is also the co-editor of The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker: The Dublin Years (2012). He has published Stoker on Stoker Dracula Revealed (2022) a companion book to his informative audio visual presentations. In 2022 Dacre and Robert Eighteen Bisang published Dracula Annotated for the 125th Anniversary, a culmination of years of research, this version includes many of the passages edited out of the final Dracula typescript, including the first three chapters and the original ending.
Dacre has consulted and appeared in recent film documentaries about vampires in literature and popular culture. The Real Vampire Files (2010 History Channel), The Tillinghast Nightmare, (2014 Historical Haunts), Secrets of the Dead (2015 PBS), Mysteries at the Museum, (2017 Travel Channel) Legend Hunter (2019 Travel Channel) American Vampires (2022 Fox Nation).
This event is possible thanks to the support of
Thursday, Oct 3 | 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Location: Hot Shops Art Center
Host: Carrie Nath
All aboard for a fast-paced survey originating with actual vampire hysteria of the 1700’s in Europe through vampires in literature, on stage, movies, television, musicals, opera, and merchandise.
Friday, Oct 4 | 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Location: UNO Weber Fine Arts Building
Host: Carrie Nath
All aboard for a fast-paced survey originating with actual vampire hysteria of the 1700’s in Europe through vampires in literature, on stage, movies, television, musicals, opera, and merchandise.
Friday, Oct 4 | 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Location: BLUEBARN Lobby
Host: Carrie Nath
The inseparable connection between the historic Vlad Dracula III and fictional Count Dracula. Take a tour through both medieval and modern-day Romania investigating the fact and fiction surrounding Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Book signing of Dacre’s co-authored Dracula the Un-Dead, the only sequel to Bram’s Dracula approved by the Stoker Estate to follow.
Friday, Oct 4 | 9:30 pm – 10:30 pm
Location: BLUEBARN Porchyard
Hosts: Todd Richardson, Carrie Nath
Throughout the Fall, BLUEBARN Director of Equitable Access, Carrie Nath, and Todd Richardson, Ph. D., professor of folk and historical literature and a member of the Goodrich Scholar Faculty, worked with Goodrich Scholars to explore the monsters of our current time. Gather around the bonfire out back to hear these chilling tales, inspired by Hillgren’s letter format. Sure to reach deep into your soul in the dead of night.
Wednesday, Oct 9 | 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Location: SARO Cider | 1012 S 10th St, Omaha, NE 68108
Hosts: Bill Grennan and Ben Beck
A spine-chilling evening of the most notorious specters and evil-doers! Where does Dracula’s fictional castle lie? What inspired Shelley to put Frankenstein on the slab? Which Victorian felon inspired the notorious Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? This, and more, will come to light – or should we say, reveal itself in the dark? Beware the night and brave the shadows for an evening of…what’s that?! I…AAAAAGGGGH!!!!
Ist Place team: 2 single tickets for Dracula & SARO Beanie and Brews
2nd Place team: $25 gift card to SARO Cider
Thursday, Oct. 10 | Directly following the show
Location: BLUEBARN Theatre
Moderator: Carrie Nath
Disability has a long and arduous history with depictions of horror on stage, the big screen, and in literature. Cast yourself into the fray as we discuss the stigmatization of disability through the horror genre and the prevalent examples of disability in one of literature’s most villainous monsters.
Featuring Guests: Adam Owsinski, Slavic folklore and research philosopher of Melbourne Australia; George Mihai, Romanian Scholar and Dramaturg; Kristin Walstad, Program Director, National Alliance for Mental Illness, Nebraska
Friday, Oct. 18 | Directly following the show
Location: BLUEBARN Theatre
Moderator: Carrie Nath
90 minutes, 38 pages, 13 creatives and 1 actor. A literal Tour de Force of Terror. How do they do it?
Join Aaron Zavitz and the production creatives to unearth the mysteries unfolding onstage. From wild wolf packs to sexy succubus – all the ravenous creatures of the night – we will bury ourselves in this tumultuous foray into the life of a bloodsucking fiend. Garlic, crucifix, and silver bullets optional.
Friday, Oct. 25 | Directly following the show
Location: BLUEBARN Theatre
Moderator: Jill Anderson
Featuring Guests: Jesse Wohlman, Bill Kirby
Sound is a very important element in theatre. How was it conceptualized and invented for “Dracula: The Journal of Jonathan Harker”? Jill Anderson, Jesse Wohlman, and Bill Kirby will discuss how they have created their vivid soundscape for this production. From recorded music and sound effects, driving live percussion, foley, vocal improvisation, and a dozen different “bells and whistles”, the story is brought to vivid and atmospheric life through sound. Don’t miss this fascinating discussion.
Featured Artist: Marc Manriquez
Curated by Josh Brown and Lallaya Lalley
BLUEBARN Mammel Lobby
The exhibit will be open to the public 45 minutes before each show and during box office hours, Monday-Friday 10 am-4 pm, in the BLUEBARN Lobby.
Oct 11 | 6:30 pm, before the 7:30 pm show
Please join us for a pre-show conversation with Josh and dear friends as they share stories in honor of their friend and artist, Marc Manriquez.
Book selection curated by our partner
Location: BLUEBARN Lobby
A collection of terrorizing tales and the stories that made them. Feminist witches, surviving the horror of queer conversion camps, Southern Vampire slayers and the only approved sequel to Stoker’s Dracula. There is plenty to keep you awake at night. Welcome to our literary lair – BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Payment accepted: Venmo