Omahype: The Omaha Events Calendar

Written by Brandon Pierce Geary

Dear Omaha’s Literati, where art thou?

On Monday February 28th, something truly remarkable took place at the prestigious and historied Omaha Community Playhouse in the Howard Drew Theatre. A national cultural phenomenon known as the Encyclopedia Show took over and put on display the exceptional talent of our hometown writers, examiners of life’s minutiae, artists and general experts.

Here’s the idea behind the show: Conceived in Chicago’s glorious poetry and performance art scene, gestated in the minds of two Chicagoland literary moguls and birthed on a monthly basis for three seasons now, the Encyclopedia Show is a bit of a literary art spectacle. A topic is decided upon and presenters use their particular talent to offer as many facts concerning that topic as possible. A fact-checker enlisted from the Institute of Human Knowledge and Hygiene scrutinizes each performance to verify its factualness. Drawing on local talent, the original Chicago show’s lineup consisted of poets, actors, musicians and the Omaha show followed suit by commissioning local notables from those same spheres to discuss the given topic of the evening — bears.

There were locally-renowned poets (Matt Mason, Ben Wenzl, Marissa Gill), rising musical stars (All Young Girls Are Machine Guns), and acting troupe members (Aetherplough’s J. Richard Thomas). The show was hosted by writers Katie F-S and Andrew Ek and musical accompaniment was provided by the beautiful and tasteful guitar of Mr. Michael Campbell.

Now the Drew only holds approximately 200-250 depending on how the risers are arranged. There were a handful of people on the catwalk balcony and several seats still available on the actual risers so being very generous I would say there were no more than 150-160 attendees. Insanity. I truly expected there to be a line out the door. This amazing show has only been officially sanctioned by the originators and the Institute of Human Knowledge and Hygiene for a few cities. We are extremely fortunate to have a member of the institute living in our very own city, Shannon Jaxies. This fact coupled with our strong poetry scene allowed us to be among the exclusive ranks of cities like Vancouver, Austin and Oklahoma City.

Perhaps there was a lack of promotion but I highly doubt that. Even this very website posted it as an Editor’s Pick. The show was exceptional, hilarious and above all absolutely free. The enthusiastic crowd was sparse but clearly enjoyed every minute of the show. I am not going to say the night was a bust, far far far from it. And to be honest the intimacy the lack of numbers allowed was nice. Nicer still would have been a packed house with people clamoring to get in due to the ravenous excitement about the great writing and powerful performance that I know exists in this town. But apparently only we happy few didn’t have something “better” to do (on a Monday night no less). And I mean that as facetiously as possible.

Some highlights from the evening began with Jason Thomas’ uproariously rambling and seemingly desultory take on Gummy Bears. He effectively fumbled over the finer complexities of all that is Gummy Bear-dom while consuming a bag of the tiny treats and being constantly dinged by Jaxies for fictitious information. In an unexpectedly funny and startling move she in fact told him he was finished after he meandered down a rabbit trail about moose instead of bears. Perhaps there was a touch of unintentional improv employed but either way it was brilliant. Matt Mason’s interpretation of an Old Testament tale, All Young Girls Are Machine Guns’ history of and song about a tryst with Smokey the Bear, and Marissa Gill’s glorious dissection of Sarah Palin’s “Mommy Grizzlies” were among other wonderfully jovial entries.

Rita Pakowitz and Natalie Wilkinson gave stirring readings of more historical delineations. The former read a story of a young German girl looking to the bear constellations for comfort during “the night of broken glass” and the former recited a poem about Russian circus bears. Both were more serious than most of the offerings but were so excellently presented they offered a welcome solemnity.

Finally I thought the rousingly meek reading by Andrew Ek truly stole the show. He spoke about the ubiquity of bears in children’s literature and went on to make us all practically weep with sentiment as he recounted his Grandmother’s marriage to and subsequent abandonment by her first husband, a gigantic grizzly in South Dakota. He presented this story with such disarming regality and affection for the subjects that something truly magical took off and whipped around the small theater. Jaxies declared the story historically accurate, but that is grossly besides the point. The whimsy was palpable and the delight that was shining on all the faces of the audience could have outshone all the Christmas lights in the Gene Leahy Mall. It is writers like Ek who make Omaha such a lovely place to explore literature and the community it engenders.

Although I was sorely disappointed in the turnout (I know we can pack out the Holland or at least one of our premier rock show venues) we still have time to get the word out. This is slotted to be a continual show like the one in Chicago with a revolving cast of performers. They are now taking requests for subtopics for ensuing shows at facebook.com/encycloshomaha and twitter.com/encycloshomaha. So taunt them with requests.

I want to end with a particularly stimulating sentence from Fernando Montejano’s treatise on Grizzly Adams:

“We asked him to lead us through thick and thin and he lead us through worse…and we survived.”

Upon finishing his portion of the evening I wanted to leap to my feet and a howl a guttural yalp from the depths of my soul. The air was casual enough with many people catcalling and randomly exclaiming that an outburst like mine would not have necessarily been inappropriate but I was also so stunned by Mr. Montejano’s deft handling of “macho-ness” and strength that I just sat and pondered the implications of the entire night.