Omaha Mobile Stage

Mobile architecture as post-pandemic creative placemaking

  • Type Cultural
  • Location Anywhere
  • Status in progress
  • Date 2021
  • Project Partners

    Partners for Livable Omaha:
    Jessica Scheuerman, Founding Director

    Brendan Greene-Walsh, Technical Director in Theatre, Nebraska Wesleyan University

    Nebraska Innovation Studio:
    Jerry Reif, Assistant Director

FACT 25 – Active Project

Omaha Mobile Stage is a creative placemaking project to design and make a portable stage to serve as a cultural and economic catalyst in public spaces and main streets throughout the Omaha metropolitan area.OMS is a project of Partners for Livable Omaha, an Omaha-based nonprofit dedicated to the educational and charitable support of the live performing arts.

As the pandemic has dragged on, cities have seen a collapse in the cultural and commercial activities that make urban life exciting. The pandemic has created a vacuum in cultural districts and severely impacted employment in the live entertainment industries, which have retreated online. While physical distancing has saved lives, social isolation and loneliness have emerged as serious public health concerns. Now that a vaccine circulates, the creative and public realms have a unique opportunity to work together to breathe life back into cities. In response to our times, Omaha Mobile Stage is a prototype for a new model of outdoor venue providing a fun and flexible, but safe and serene, place for Omahans re-engage with each other, reactivate public spaces, and reanimate social, creative, and economic life in the city. The project is inspired by the long history of pageant wagons and the original Omaha Show Wagon, built in 1952 and used for many years thereafter. See the project website: https://omahamobilestage.org for detailed information.

> This is an active project, check back periodically to see progress

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Omaha Mobile Stage as a neighborhood outdoor screening room (rendering)
Final concept with doors open and stage deployed
The OMS is designed to be set up by 2 people in 30 minutes

Color: The razzle dazzle camouflage pattern on the exterior and the OMS logo use light blue and coral hues reserved by the US Department of Transportation for future road sign categories - FACT and OMS are staking a claim for these colors for the arts.

The truck arrives at Nebraska Innovation Studio

Many FACT projects start with (careful) demolition

Panel mock-up for the interior of the doors and upstage walls & storage cabinets

Omaha Mobile Stage at a public school yard (rendering)

Tour: A free, live performing arts tour of Omaha’s green spaces

Beginning in Spring 2022, Omaha Mobile Stage will operate as a mobile, public venue for performing artists of all ages. By working in partnership with a diverse range of public space managers, property types, local performers and arts nonprofits, our programming will respond to the local heritage, culture and tastes of Omaha’s unique neighborhoods.

Arts and culture act as “civic glue” when they animate gatherings across generational, cultural and economic lines. Within our collaborative framework, the arts play a critical role in curating and strengthening neighborhood identity. Through performance, Omaha Mobile Stage will bring people together in a neutral, safe space that can serve as a springboard for further community and economic development.

The 2022 Performance Tour artists and schedule will be announced in spring of 2022.

Omaha Mobile Stage at the Culxr House Block Party (rendering)

Omaha Mobile Stage on the road

FACT 25 Team

Project Team

students:
> enrollment to be finalized 08/23/2021

project advisors:
Kevin Lawler, Theatre Artist
Kat Fackler, Choreographer / Dancer
Kevin McCarthy
Dereck Higgins, Musician
T.J. Roe, Sound Engineer
Dan Brennan, Sound Engineer

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