Anastasis Theater Co. was incredibly fortunate to collaborate with the Holland Community Opera Omaha Fellows on their Spring Celebration on April 27th of this year. For those of you who don’t know about this Fellowship Program …allow me to geek out for a moment.
Lauren Medici and Britta Tollesfrud are a powerhouse team at Opera Omaha who recruit people who are both talented opera singers and stellar human beings to be Fellows for two years. During those two years, the fellows create collaborative programming with phenomenal organizations and institutions like Nelson Mandela elementary, Gotta Be Me, MICAH House and many others. The projects are co-designed with the community partners to meet their goals. For example, at Nelson Mandela, they staged a play (that I had the joy of writing) and helped coach the adorable kiddos who make up the Meerkat Melodies Choir. The fellows’ ways of incorporating opera and music into an organization’s programming are as varied as the organizations themselves. So cool.
Fast-forward to this April. Opera Omaha hosts a Spring Celebration to bring together their community partners and enjoy some musical performances by both partners and fellows. This year, they recruited Anastasis to write and direct a short play to string the musical performances of Gotta Be Me and Nelson Mandela together.
The event was even better than we could have hoped. Nelson Mandela’s choir (and their incredible teachers) put on a beautiful performance. Gotta Be Me was not only excellent, they had the crowd participating (who can resist the “Bom, bom, bom!” of Sweet Caroline??) Steven Williams, a gem of a human and mega-talented designer, made sure the UNO black box was a welcoming and prepared space for the big day.
To wrap up this long post, just let me say: Anastasis is excited to be part of the Omaha theater scene in many different ways, including collaborations. And who is a better collaborator than an organization that so fits our mission and does so much good? Thanks for reading and look out for more.
We’re just getting started.