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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 1998)
— _ _ _-» «■ Nebraska State Fair \T JF' palm reader wants to hold your hand By Bret Schulte A&E editor If you want, she’ll tell you how you will die, or predict future love affairs. And sometimes she can even be a help picking lottery numbers. Such profundities and more come from her tidy trailer parked among funnel cake stands and high school marching bands at the Nebraska State Fair. Palm reader Mrs. Roberts journeys to the state fair every year to work with fairgoers anxious to discover past mistakes, make present decisions and unlock the future. “I look at the certain lines in people’s palms,” she said. “People want to know their futures, what the successes will be. “If they want me to tell them how they will die, I will tell them.” Although born and raised in Omaha, Mrs. Roberts speaks broken English with an old-coun try thickness, a speech pattern she attributes to her tightly woven Greek family - also bom and raised in Omaha. The native accent wasn’t the only thing passed on. Like her mother, grandmother and great grandmother before, Mrs. Roberts says she was bom with the ability to read palms. “It’s something you are gifted with,’’ she rapid ly explained. “You see a vision.” Grabbing a slip of paper sitting by the trailer sink, she held it up. “(I) read it just like you read this pamphlet,” she concluded. * - I Please see FAIR on 10 i Acting troupe builds a better Barn ByLizaHoltmeier Staff writer Ten years ago, four new col lege graduates searched for a place to present contemporary theater. Now, they are the founders of the Blue Barn Theatre in Omaha and are celebrating their 10th anniversary with a new space and a new season. This weekend, the Blue Barn presents Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” the first pro duction in their new theater, which has moved from its tiny venue on 13th Street. Now located in Omaha’s Old Market, at 614 S. 11th St., the 90 seat theater includes a lobby, a tech booth, office space and even gallery space for art exhibits. The show doubles as a reunion for the four founding members of the Blue Barn - Mary Theresa to push our own boundaries,” Walkinshaw said. ”We wanted to do plays that interested us - plays that we might not have been cast in. We were in our early 20s, which is a time for exploring and finding out.” The four began looking for a city in which to locate their new venture. While visiting a sister in Omaha, Lawler received an offer for free performing space at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. The four decided to relocate to Omaha, and they presented their first season in 1989. The space at the Bemis Center was a small venue with low techni cal requirements - perfect for the Kina oi project me iour naa in mind. “At the beginning, there was no sense that this was going to be a permanent company. It was still more of a lark than an actual busi ness,” Walkinshaw said. In the two years the Blue Bam Theatre worked from the Bemis Center, it presented works quite similar to this year’s season. Contemporary American play wrights like Samuel Beckett, Sam Shepard and David Mamet headed the bill, and the Blue Bam estab lished itself as a forum for modem theater classics. Eventually, the Blue Barn moved on to a small store on South 13 th Street. The founders convert ed this building into a 60-seat black box theater where they per formed for six years. A black box theater has audience members Please see BARN on 10 Dawn Dietrich/DN KEVIN LAWLER, as Vladimir, and Mary Theresa Green, as Estragon, hold up Hughston Walkinshaw, as Lucky, in “Waiting for Godot” at the Blue Barn Theatre in Omaha. Tragicomic play ‘Godot’ premieres this weekend uieeii, iNiis naaianu, ivevin Lawler and Hughston Walkinshaw. They first met at a small per forming arts conservatory called Purchase College in New York. There, they took part in an inti mate training program that grouped students together for their four-year sojourn at the school. The goal of the program was to establish a company of actors that would continue on together after graduation. No one in the history of the school had ever done that. The Blue Barn founders decided to give it a try. “It was a bit like creating our own graduate school. We wanted “Waiting For Godot,” by Samuel Beckett, opens this weekend at the new Blue Barn Theatre, 614 S. 11th St., Omaha. Penned in 1948, “Godot” plays out a tragicomedy about the uncertainty of a life filled with hopeful expectation. The play explores man’s inability to find fulfillment through traditional values. The plot revolves around two tramps who meet each night to wait for the arrival of Godot. Though Beckett emphasizes the importance of Godot's arrival, he never explains who or what Godot is. “Beckett would never give an answer as to what this play is about,” said Kevin Lawlor, the Blue Barn’s artistic director. “People will relate on all different levels to this play. If we try to define one level, we’re going to rob the audience of that experience.” The show opens tonight and runs through Sept. 20. Performances are Thursdays through Sundays at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. For reservations, call (402)345-1576. MM—II'111'1 '—^1— Sandy Summers/DN MRS. ROBERTS reads the mysterious palms of Bret Schulte, Daily Nebraskan A&E editor, at the Nebraska State Fair on a fateful Thursday after loon. Roberts, a native of Omaha, has been coming to the fair for the past 14 years to read palms. Reverend Horton Heat to preach rock fri* roll gospel Turn up the bass, and turn up the treble, because the original Texas rockabilly rebel is back in town to offer up another lesson in debauchery, women and rock ‘n’ roll. Friday at 9 p.m. Reverend Horton Heat plays the Royal Grove, 340 W. Comhusker Highway, rocking the crowd into a state of pure psychobilly madness. Tickets for the 19-and-over show are $12 and will kick off with Paw, a group of over-the-top rockers from Lawrence, Kan. Anyone who’s seen a Reverend Horton Heat show is well aware of the group’s raw energy channeled through reverberated gui tar scratching, standup bass slapping and stampede-style drumming. So cuff up your jeans, throw some grease in your hair and toast your vodka tonic to the one and only Reverend Horton Heat.
