Past Events

The Willa Cather Foundation invites you to join us on Friday, October 7, 2016, for a unique evening designed to celebrate renowned novelist, Willa Cather. This is our first signature event in Lincoln, featuring the cuisine and creativity of Omaha chef Paul Kulik, of the Boiler Room Restaurant, Le Bouillon and Via Farina. Here's what's in store.

Nearly seventy striking paintings and sculptures made of bronze, metal, and glass make up the new art exhibit, Two Ways of Seeing, by Jeremy Daniels, on display at the Red Cloud Opera House Art Gallery. The exhibit will be available for viewing through November 30. The public is invited to meet Daniels and preview his work at an artist’s reception on Saturday, October 15, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.

Hamlet is a play about a boy who loves his father, and misses him dearly. It is a play about a boy who loses sight of love in a place that is paradoxically claustrophobic as it grows too large for his own comprehension. Heartache and adolescence. Responsibility, duty, and honor. Betrayal. Psychosis. The story is one that wrestles with simple identity in a complicated world. And in its wake, a tragic remnant of ghosts landmark truths left untold.

This performance is brought to us by Nebraska Shakespeare and will include a workshop for high schoolers prior to the performance.

During the months of August and September, the Willa Cather Foundation has been proud to display the work of Red Cloud’s youngest artists, kindergarten to 12th grade. You are warmly invited to the Artists' Reception for Red Cloud Community Schools on Thursday, September 29, 2016, from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., at the Red Cloud Opera House.

This is a wonderful opportunity to honor these artists and marvel at all the local talent that exists in Red Cloud. All are welcome and encouraged to attend this ​FREE event. Light snacks will be served, courtesy of Cooperative Producer's Inc.

On September 15 the Willa Cather Book Club will meet to discuss All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which is a 2015 Pulitzer winner for Fiction. As we concluded last year’s book club, we read a number of short pieces related to the First World War; we begin this year with Doerr’s excellent story set against the background of World War II. There are two meeting times available; 4:00 p.m. at Cherry Corner Estates and 6:30 at the Cather Second Home.

The Willa Cather Foundation will host its second Pollinator Workshop on the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie on September 6, 2016. This free event is a perfect way to introduce prairie ecology to elementary and middle school students and for them to explore the spectacular autumn prairie! Students will participate in hands-on activities that explore pollination, create habitat for native bees and butterflies, identify important prairie grass and forb species, and investigate pollinator populations on the prairie.

This year both performances will be on Friday, August 5.

The Opera House Gallery will be filled with an eclectic collection of pieces from grades K-12. These talented youngsters will be showing off their skills in various mediums including acrylic  and oil paints, ceramics, sculpture, crayon, colored pencil, and mixed media. 

Missoula Children's Theatre will take place August 1-5. Auditions for Rapunzel will be Monday, August 1, at 10:00 a.m. and rehearsals throughout the week will be at 10:00 a.m. Rehearsals will be 4 and half hours; students will need to bring sack lunches to rehearsals. This year both performances will be on Friday, August 5, at 3:00 and 7:00 p.m. There will not be a Saturday performance.

Middletown is a deeply moving and humorous play that explores the universe of a small American town. As a friendship develops between longtime resident John Dodge and new arrival Mary Swanson, the lives of the inhabitants of Middletown intersect in strange and poignant ways in a journey that takes them from the local library to outer space and points between. Mark your calendars for July 7-9 at 7:00 p.m. and July 10 at 3:00 p.m., when the Red Cloud Opera House will host local talent, taking the stage as the Republican Valley Community Theatre.