Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories

Theater prodigies of the kind portryaed in the Wes Anderson film “Rushmore” have their antecedents in real life and just like in that story, they spring up in the most unexpected places. Omaha’s Noah Diaz is the latest Omaha theater prodigy and he finds himself in some very good company historically speaking. Perhaps the best known American theater prodigy, the late Orson Welles, first emerged as a stage presence to be watched at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois before he brazenly announced himself to the world in Dublin and then New York City. Across the pond, Kenneth Branagh, born in Belfast, first asserted his thespian bent in elementary school in Reading, Berkshire after his family’s move to England, and then he displayed his precicious talents at London’s Royal School of Dramatic Art. Back home, Omaha has had its own share of youth-must-be-served stage lights. The most famous of them all, Henry Fonda, was encouraged to try his hand at theater by Dottie Brando, mother of future stage-film icon Marlon Bramdo, at the Omaha Community Playhouse. A young Henry found his calling three and threw himself into all aspects of the craft – from building, painting and taking down sets to acting on stage. Dorothy McGuire soon followed him in the fold. They appeared together in a 1930 production at the Playhouse. Older than her, he left first to pursue a life in theater. Her family moved from Omaha and she soon left home to pursue her own career in theater. They both made it, of course, and two and a half decades after they shared the stage in Omaha in that 1930 show, they returned, this time as Broadway-Hollywood stars, to perform together in “The Country Girl” as a fundraiser for the new Playhouse. Now comes Noah Diaz, who by his early 20s has racked up more theater credits than most players twice or three times his age. He’s also been nominated for and won a slew of local theater awards for his acting. But he’s also a director and his work behind the stage has received raves as well. But it turns out his real calling in theater may be as a playwright. An original piece he’s written, The Motherhood Almanac, is being workshopped around the country and makes its world premiere here in January at the Shelterbelt, which is his theater home. Not to put pressure on him, but he may just be the latest in a recent line of Omaha-bred theater talent – Andrew Rannells, John Lloyd Young, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Quiana Smith, Kevyn Morrow – to make it to Broadway one day. Remember his name.

Noah Diaz: Metro theater’s man for all seasons and stages

©by Leo Adam Biga

Appeared in El Perico

Noah Diaz has been a force of nature in metro area theater since age eight. Still just 23, he owns 90-plus credits and multiple Omaha Theatre Arts Guild and Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards nominations and wins.

He’s also a feted writer-director. He’s in good company as a local theater prodigy. A young Henry Fonda and Dorothy McGuire blazed early trails at the Omaha Community Playhouse before Broadway and Hollywood stardom. More recent stage-screen stars Andrew Rannells and John Lloyd Young got their performing starts as kids in Omaha theater.

Diaz, a University of Nebraska at Omaha student, is set on making theater his life but he only recently concluded that writing, not acting, may be his calling. A play he’s written, The Motherhood Almanac, is creating buzz. He served a residency with it at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference in Idaho. Two New York City theater companies will workshop it in 2017. It premieres at Omaha’s Shelterbelt Theatre on January 27.

He said it was in Idaho he discovered his true “theatrical path,” adding, “I’ve been directing a number of things recently and I’m enjoying directing very much. But I think I might be a playwright. I think that might be what I want to do. That was like a very crystal moment of clarity for me.”

As a kid, Diaz and his cousins put on shows for their parents, but he’s been been writing since childhood, too. Almanac began as a poem he wrote as a youth.

“Over the years it expanded and kept unfolding. That poem turned into a handful of different poems that turned into scenes that turned into stories. It was two years ago I sat down and pieced it all together and understood what I had written. It’s a fragmented, nonlinear story with seven actresses about mothers across time and space. It’s my answer to the question – what does it meant to love somebody other than yourself.

“I’m constantly working on it, developing and workshopping it.

That’s why I’m opening myself up to these opportunities to work with different companies and actresses.”

He’s always had the internal drive and discipline writing requires, just as he’s long known he was meant to do theater.

“It’s always been a thing I’ve just understood about myself since I was young.” His parents encouraged his theater interests. “They recognized where my passions lay and they were about fostering my achieving that.”

His pursuit has landed him on virtually every metro area stage, including the Omaha Community Playhouse and The Rose. “By sheer tenacity I’ve wracked up a number of credits and a lot of experience.” No matter where he does theater, he’s younger than his fellow creatives, “I’ve been very fortunate to have had zero run-ins where age is an issue.. I’ve worked with actors who are so open with their process that they’ve allowed themselves over to me. It’s a profoundly high compliment in my book.”

He added, “The only thing I find tricky to maneuver is simply getting the work – being given opportunities. Directing work is hard to come by. It’s scary for people to put a full production in a 23 year-old’s hands. Luckily, I’ve made an artistic home at the Shelterbelt. They’ve been great to me. They’ve given me a number of opportunities.”

He counts theater veterans as teachers.

“I’ve worked with a staggeringly high number of talented people on stage and off. I’ve learned from them, I’m still learning from them. I have mentors, big and small, everywhere. I think in many ways I was raised by my mentors. I received theatrical and life lessons working in shows.”

He admires writers who sacrifice to get their stories told. “I’m so inspired by local playwrights like Ellen Struve, Beau Berry, Kaitlyn McClincy, Laura Leininger-Campbell, Nick Zadina, Joe Basque.” He’s collaborated with some.

He sees a vibrant local stage scene with “a big surge of people wanting to make theater.” He also sees gaps that need addressing. “I’m a very big advocate for accessible theater,” said Diaz, a special education and communication disorder major. He played a deaf character on stage in SNAP Productions mounting of Tribes. “Opening possibilities and opportunities for inclusivity in theater is important to me. Theaters can do better in terms of offering interpretive performances. I taught a deaf integrated acting class at the Rose (Theater) and I will be training to be an audio describer for the blind.”

Since he’s done so much so early, Diaz often gets asked – why haven’t you moved away yet to try Broadway or Hollywood?

“It’s simply about going when I’m ready. I’m still in school. I’ll be applying to a number of MFA programs this fall for playwriting.

Hopefully I’ll be be accepted to one to begin in the fall of 2017.

“I will move away eventually and work.”

Chicago’s vital theater community is a likely landing spot. He’s well aware of those who’ve left here to find stardom.

“If great success comes my way, that’s cool, but I’m more interested in doing the actual work itself.”

Meanwhile, he’s not giving up acting quite yet. “I will still continue to do it because I enjoy it.”

For details and dates on Almanac’s run at the Shelterbelt, visit http://www.shelterbelt.org/.