Before W. Boyd Jones built the structure that represented the Omaha Community Playhouse’s first permanent home in 1959, the local theater lived for 30 years in a cramped building on a former cow pasture that was built as a temporary structure. The histories of Boyd Jones and the Playhouse date to their founding years of 1924. The two organizations grew up as Omaha came into its own as a city, and W. Boyd Jones and his wife, Nellie, were active supporters of the local performing arts scene.
Our company was selected to construct the new permanent home for the Playhouse in November 1957. By that time, the theater had hosted native Omahans-turned-Hollywood stars including two-time Academy Award winner Jane Fonda and brother Peter Fonda, himself a multiple-time Oscar nominee; their Academy Award-winning father Henry Fonda; and Oscar nominee Dorothy McGuire.
Construction was completed in summer 1959, and the Sunday World-Herald Magazine preview of the inaugural performance that August set the scene:
“The new Playhouse stands on a hill at Sixty-ninth and Cass Streets. It combines massive exterior grandeur with intimate interior simplicity. It represents 550 thousand dollars worth of quality material and skilled workmanship, a vision made real in red brick, the culmination of years of wishing, planning and meticulous designing.”
Ninety-five years later, the efforts of Boyd Jones and Mr. Cooper, whose other civic efforts included a major role in welcoming the city’s first AAA baseball club to town, are resonant. The Playhouse remains the largest community theater in the U.S., while Boyd Jones is still going strong as a builder and construction manager, and a contributor to the growth and progress of scores of Omaha community organizations.
