Arts and Entertainment Venues

Smitty's Performing Arts Center

mitty's Performing Arts Center is celebrating 17 years of educating youth in Nebraska. Our passion and S excitement for dance, aerial silks, and acrobatics reach students from ages 3-Adults! Located at 2410 S 140th Circle in Omaha, our highly professional and experienced staff offer classes from ballet, aerial silks, acro, jazz, tap, hip hop, musical theatre, contemporary, pointe and boys only classes. We offer both recreational and competitive programs, along with our highly recommended summer program, filled with themed camps and intensives. ..

Smitty's Performing Arts Center

2410 S 140th Circle

Omaha, NE 68144 402.999.6368 smittyspac-omaha.com Michael Lyon interviews NPR's Susan Stamberg

Photo by Marc May

Omaha Public Radio

adio profoundly changed the American culture by exposing more people to new ideas, music, news, and entertainment. Today, Omaha Public Radio continues R to play a vital role in spreading information, educating and enlightening people, and it helps make listeners in our pluralistic society more responsive, informed human beings and intelligent responsible citizens.

Omaha Public Radio brings the world to the Omaha community and beyond 24 hours a day—the world of politics, science, culture, and music. Through our daily lineup of fact-centered reporting, insightful conversations, and strong community focus, KIOS provides connections to the heartbeat of Omaha in ways no one else does.

KIOS’S COVERAGE OF ARTS AND CULTURE IS FOCUSED ON LOCALLY PRODUCED SHOWS THAT CONSIDER HOW OUR COMMUNITY LIVES. In addition to national and regional programming, KIOS’s coverage of arts and culture is focused on locally produced shows that consider how our community lives. This is reflected in jazz, blues, AAA and retro music shows, live interviews on a diverse range of cultural topics, and conversations on how to live well physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually across fields and disciplines. KIOS also amplifies the voices of local nonprofits in a daily interview segment. KIOS is currently working with a local theatre to bring some of our most popular programs to live audiences. ..

Full program lineup at kios.org

PART OF MY ROLE IS BEING IN THE COMMUNITY. I GENUINELY ENJOY BEING IN OMAHA. I HAVE A HUGE APPRECIATION TO BE DOING THIS WORK IN A COMMUNITY “

THAT MEANS SO MUCH TO ME, THE PLACE I GREW UP.” -LAUREN MEDICI

Lauren Medici is redefining opera.

AAs Director of Engagement Programs at Opera Omaha, Medici creates and oversees various programs seeking to unleash the power of creativity through the synthesis of community and art.

By centering around civic practice, with full time artists on staff to put in the necessary hours, she’s flipping the script on arts outreach by connecting with established local community partners, learning their needs and perspectives—with them as the experts—and ultimately creating programming designed to reach their unique goals.

This new mode of engagement within opera world—the creation of programs that are responsive and adaptable to other organizations’ goals—moves beyond outreach. “We can think more expansively and creatively about what opera can look like,” Medici affirms.

“We have true partnership and true relationship with our community partners. We are centering the community in the process from the beginning. It’s not just about us producing operas. We are amplifying what they are doing, helping other organizations achieve goals that are not arts related.”

The centuries-old industry is taking notice.

Opera America, the official American opera service organization, has acknowledged the value of this innovative new model, earning their endorsement and their encouragement for other companies to follow suit. Modeling Medici’s framework, other opera companies are initiating similar programs inspired by Omaha’s.

“This is the dream. We aren’t trying to keep this to ourselves. The hope is that it spreads across the county. And because it’s community specific, it will be different in each city.”

Among dozens of community programs, Medici also leads the Holland Community Opera Fellowship, which brings opera into new environments—illustrating and promoting the value of creativity in both arts and non-arts sectors.

An Omaha native, Lauren left Nebraska to attend Trinity University to study Business and Theater before bursting onto the arts scene at the historic McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, New Jersey.

Her civic connections began to flourish at the intersection of art and health, becoming the Art & Cultural Programs Associate at the Springpoint Senior Living Foundation in addition to working with Atlantic Health System’s Healing Arts Program, and completing her Master’s of Arts and Medicine over the same period.

In 2017 she returned to her roots as Opera Omaha’s first Director of Engagement Programs.

“Part of my role is being in the community. I genuinely enjoy being in Omaha. I have a huge appreciation to be doing this work in a community that means so much to me, the place I grew up, that I left, and then made a conscious choice to come back. I’ve come full circle. My first opera experience was attending an Opera Omaha student dress rehearsal, and now I run that program and get to welcome hundreds of students to the Orpheum each year…

Being in a space with people who are experiencing one of our programs, even standing in the back of the room, sensing their creative spark ignite, it’s as if I’m experiencing it too. Now I’m in charge of creating those opportunities for other people.” OO