Riverside Chats

Alejandra Sandoval-Montañez is a mezzo-soprano and Holland Community Opera Fellow . The fellowship brings community-focused artists to live and work in Omaha. Sandoval-Montañez grew up in Mexico and received her Masters in Vocal Performance and Literature from the University of Illinois. Her stage credits include roles in productions of “Carnaval!,” “A Little Night Music,” “Pirates of Penzance” an...

Maggie Wood is executive director of the nonprofit, arthouse cinema Film Streams. This year, Film Streams is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its Dundee Theater with the Dundee Hundee series . The yearlong program includes 10 films, one for each decade of the theater’s history. The next screening is at 7 p.m. this Saturday, May 24, featuring the 1948 Technicolor film “The Red Shoes.” Maggie Wo...

Hana Baba is creator of the new audio series “Folktales From Sudan.” The series is a passion project inspired by the stories Baba grew up hearing when visiting relatives in Sudan. Each episode is a single story narrated by Baba with music and sound effects. Baba says the series marks the first time the tales have been recorded in English. “Folktales From Sudan” premiered in March and is now availa...

Mayor Jean Stothert is running for reelection against John Ewing. The election is Tuesday, May 13.  We spoke to Ewing on last week’s show, and you can find that episode wherever you get your podcasts.  This is Stothert’s fourth campaign for mayor. Before she entered politics, Stothert was head nurse at St. Louis University Hospital. She moved to Omaha with her family in 1993 and has served on the...

It’s election season in Omaha, and today's guest is John Ewing, who’s running for mayor against incumbent Jean Stothert. We’ll hear from Stothert in next week’s episode. Ewing spent 25 years as a police officer before assuming office in 2007 as Douglas County Treasurer. He holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and criminal justice and a master's degree in urban studies from the Univ...

Phillip McClain is founder of the real estate company the Mensch Group. Through the Mensch Group, McClain spearheads affordable housing developments in North Omaha. The company broke ground on its first project last year: nine single-family homes at 49th and Curtis Streets, an area known as Curtis Corner. McClain sold the houses to families for below market value thanks to assistance from local or...

Kaleb Michaud is a professor of rheumatology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the director of Spielbound Board Game Cafe. Michaud grew up in Kansas, where he developed a passion for music and astrophysics. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Rochester and a PhD from Stanford University.  When he was 3 years old, Michaud was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthr...

Karen Russell's “The Antidote” follows five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their fictional small town of Uz, Nebraska. Together, the group of outcasts join forces to reveal the town’s secrets and show the importance of remembering and acknowledging injustices to create a better future. Russell has received MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships and was a finalist f...

Joel Damon is an artist, curator and co-founder of the Project Project gallery space in South Omaha. Damon was previously on the show in 2022, in conversation with Tom Knoblauch. Damon is a painter and designer who gained recognition for organizing independent visual art exhibitions for local artists. He was the curator of the Bemis Underground, the Bemis Center’s former space dedicated to regiona...

Christopher German founded the Omaha-based fragrance company Evodia in 2020. With the tagline, “where memories make scents,” Evodia comes from German’s lifelong fascination with fragrance. The company sells bottles of unisex perfume and offers clients the opportunity to create custom scents with German’s help. It’s been recognized by the Omaha’s Choice Awards four years in a row, winning first pla...

Quinn Metal Corbin is manager of the Great Plains Theater Commons. Corbin has spent more than two decades in the performing arts. She’s worked as a casting intern in New York, a script production assistant on a Broadway musical, an assistant to a powerful entertainment agency executive, and an event coordinator for the National Theatre in London among other roles. In addition to her industry jobs,...

Shaq Jones, aka Scottie Pigeon, is a dancer and DJ. Jones uses his platform to center the experience of Black men in the arts. He grew up in North Omaha and attended Lincoln University of Missouri, a historically Black college, where he led the school’s dance troupe before graduating in 2017. He returned to Omaha and began collaborating with various performing arts organizations around town, inclu...

Kevin Clouther is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha Writer’s Workshop, where he serves as program coordinator of the Master of Fine Arts in Writing. Clouther is also the author of the story collections “Maximum Speed” and “We Were Flying to Chicago.” His stories have appeared in Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, Joyland, New Orleans Review, Ruminate and StoryQuarterly, among...

Dirty Birds, located in the Flatiron building at 17th and St. Mary’s Avenue, is known for its fried chicken and cocktail menu. Matthew Moseley and Dan Whalen opened the restaurant in early 2021 with a goal of serving quality food in a community-oriented space. Business partner Mike West joined the team shortly after. Guy Fieri visited Dirty Birds in 2023 for an episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins, and D...

Brenton Gomez is a fixture of Omaha’s rap and skateboarding scenes. You may know him as Conny Franko, the name under which he’s been releasing music for the better part of two decades. He’s half of the hip-hop duo M34N STR33T with producer Adam Haug. Skateboarding was Gomez’s first love. His experiences street skating as a kid inspired him to spend much of his adult life advocating for skate park...

Xavier Jackson is founder and CEO of Local Art Plug. An Omaha native, Jackson started the business in 2017 to connect artists with art lovers. Musicians and artists can find audiences through the organization’s website, which has pieces for sale, and a gallery space in the Flatiron Building downtown.  Local Art Plug’s services also include subscription plans for individuals and businesses. Subscri...

Carmen Winant is an artist, photographer, writer, and art professor at The Ohio State University. Her work involves installation and collage work to examine survival and revolt through a feminist lens. Her traveling exhibition “The last safe abortion” opens Jan. 18 at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.  “The last safe abortion” is an exploration of women’s health clinics and abortion providers, w...

It's our 200th episode, and we're doing something a little different this week. In this episode, Michael Griffin is in conversation with producer Courtney Bierman. A quick note on episode numbers: if you’re listening to the podcast version of this show, you’ll notice it lists this episode as number 218. That’s because show creator Tom Knoblauch started the count when Riverside Chats was a series o...

Todd Lemke is the founder and publisher of Omaha Magazine, a 42-year-old regional publication covering the arts, lifestyle, entertainment, food and more. Lemke grew up in Papillion and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1981 with a degree in journalism. In 1983, he started a print publication called Omaha Today, which eventually became Omaha Magazine.  Omaha Magazine is behind th...

Joshua Brown is the program coordinator at the Nebraska Arts Council, a state organization whose mission is to promote, cultivate and sustain the arts through programming, grants and opportunities to foster creative innovation statewide. At the Arts Council, Brown manages grants related to arts education and accessibility. Outside of his work with the Arts Council, he also serves as a visual artis...

Jahmai Brown is a painter, photographer and Hot Shops Art Center resident.  An Omaha native, Brown attended North High School and graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute. His paintings are often works of bright colors, bold patterns and less traditional materials like glitter and magazine clippings.  Brown was also among the artists who created the “Black Skies” mural in 2018 at 24th and Gran...

Erin Feichtinger is policy director of the Women's Fund of Omaha. In this episode, she's in conversation with Tom Knoblauch about history (in which she has a Ph. D. from Loyola University Chicago) and politics, including Governor Pillen's vision for Nebraska and how it's panning out after a contentious state legislative session. This episode was recorded before the 2024 general election.

Working in poetry, glass and installation, Aspen Monet Laboy’s art explores concepts of environmentalism and identity. In the summer of 2022, they implemented and co-hosted Corner’s Space at KANEKO, a public program exploring poetry through creative experimentation and collaboration. Laboy has published three books of poetry with a fourth on the way. Several of their selected poems were aired on F...

Sean Kelly is a candidate for Douglas County Commissioner, District 5 against Brian Fahey. An Omaha native and Dundee resident, Kelly attended Creighton Prep and went on to receive an undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business. Outside of his run for office, Kelly works as a local investor and agricultural real estate professiona...

Brian Fahey is a local attorney running for Douglas County Commissioner, District 5 against Sean Kelly. An Omaha native and nephew of former mayor Mike Fahey, Brian Fahey attended Central High School and went on to receive a law degree from the University of Nebraska College of Law. Fahey is also a member of the River City Mixed Chorus Board of Directors, vocalist for the Omaha Chamber Singers and...