The Magic Theatre is located at 325 South 16th Street in Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Founded in 1968 by Jo Ann Schmidman, the theatre is designed to be an experimental theatre

Experimental theatre

Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...

 by and for people in the Midwest. The Magic Theatre has toured around the world, including the Suwon Castle International Theater Festival in South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

. The theatre itself was closed and sold by the city of Omaha in 2007.

About

Today Schmidman is the Theatre's Director, with Megan Terry serving as the playwright-in-residence and as Magic Theatre's "literary manager" Among their best known productions are Approaching Simone, Viet Rock, Calm Down, Mother, and Hot House. The archives of the Omaha Magic Theatre have been placed in the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley.

Publications

In addition to performing work by playwrights from across the country, Schmidman and Megan Terry

Megan Terry

Megan Terry is an internationally known playwright and prolific writer. Terry, born in Seattle, Washington, United States in 1932, had a love for the theatre since the age of seven and became involved with the theatre at an early age...

have published several of the Magic Theatre's original productions.

• (1990) Breakfast Serial. Omaha Magic Theatre.
• (1990) Body Leaks. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1988) Amtrak. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1988) Headlights. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1988) Retro. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1987) Dinner's in the Blender. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1986) Family Talk. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1981) The Trees Blew Down. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1981) Flat in Afghanistan. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1981) Katmandu. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1981) Performance Piece. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1981) Winners: The Lives of a Traveling Family Circus and Mother Jones. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1980) Advances, Omaha Magic Theatre Press. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1979) Babes in the Bighouse: A Documentary Fantasy Musical about Life inside a Women's Prison. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1979) Brazil Fado: You're Always with Me. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1979) Women's Prison. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1979) BAttempted Rescue on Avenue B: A Beat Fifties Comic Opera. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1978) American King's English for Queens. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1978) 100,001 Horror Stories of the Plains. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1977) Sleazing toward Athens. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1974) Fifteen Million Fifteen Year Olds (musical). Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1974) Henna for Endurance. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.
• (1974) Hospital Play. Omaha Magic Theatre Press.

Publications about the Omaha Magic Theatre

• Klein, Jeanne (1988) Megan Terry's Plays for Youth at the Omaha Magic Theatre. Paper presented at the Joint Annual Meeting of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education and the Association for Theatre and Disability (Portland, OR, August 2–6, 1988). ERIC # ED301902.