Cultural Date Nights in Omaha: Art, Theater and Live Music

The lights went down and my wife reached over and grabbed my hand without looking, the way she does when something's about to start. We were up in the balcony at the Orpheum, the gold ceiling glowing, the orchestra tuning down below, and I remember thinking we should do this more. We always think that. We never do it enough.

Here's what I want to make the case for. A culture date, art, theater, music, an old film in a dark room, is one of the best nights out a married couple can have, and Omaha punches way above its weight on this stuff. You don't have to fly anywhere. It's all right here, and a lot of it costs less than you'd guess. Some of it's even free.

So here's where we go, what each one feels like, and how the tickets work.

Start free. Joslyn Art Museum on Dodge is one of the great gifts of this city, and general admission is free, always, no ticket required. Wander the galleries together, argue gently about which paintings you'd hang at home, sit on a bench in front of something big and just be quiet for a minute. They stay open late on Wednesdays and Thursdays, which makes it a genuine evening date and not just an afternoon errand. Hard to beat free and beautiful.

When you want to dress up a little, the Orpheum Theater is the one. It's a restored old vaudeville house, nearly a hundred years old, all gold leaf and chandeliers, and it hosts touring Broadway and Opera Omaha. Its sister venue, the Holland Performing Arts Center downtown, has some of the best acoustics in the country and hosts the symphony and big-name concerts. Both are run by Omaha Performing Arts, and tickets for either go through Ticket Omaha, which is the only official seller, so buy there and skip the resale markups. Splurge on this one for an anniversary. Get the balcony. It's worth it.

For local theater with a lot of heart, the Omaha Community Playhouse is the largest community theater in the country and it's genuinely good, they put on musicals and plays year-round, including their famous Christmas Carol every December. Tickets are gentler on the wallet than the touring stuff, so it's a great pick when you want a real theater night without the splurge price. It's the kind of date where you grab dessert after and talk the whole drive home about the show.

Now for something quieter and a little more us. Film Streams runs two art-house cinemas, the Ruth Sokolof Theater in North Downtown and the historic Dundee Theater, Omaha's longest-surviving neighborhood movie house. They show classics, foreign films, documentaries, the stuff the big multiplex won't. The Dundee spot is perfect because you can get coffee or dessert in the neighborhood first, we lean on Dundee for date nights a lot, and there's more on it in our Dundee guide. A film you'd never have picked, in a room built for movies, is a better date than another night on the couch. Every time.

Want live music with a little edge? Head to Benson, Omaha's artsy little bar district, where The Waiting Room Lounge on Maple is one of the best live rooms in the Midwest. Down in North Downtown, Slowdown, from the folks behind Saddle Creek Records, brings in touring indie acts and local bands alike. Check their calendars, grab tickets ahead for the bigger shows, and go stand shoulder to shoulder in a dark room and feel the bass in your chest together. It's a different kind of date, louder, younger, and every couple needs one of those now and then. Benson's a fun neighborhood to explore too, as we covered in our Benson guide.

And if you're doing this in the summer, don't miss Jazz on the Green at Turner Park in Midtown Crossing. Six free Thursday nights of live jazz on the lawn, July into August. Bring a blanket, pack a little something to eat, get there early for a good spot, and lie back under the sky with music drifting over you and the person you married right beside you. Free, easy, and about as romantic as a Thursday gets in this town.

Here's the thing about a culture date. It gives you something to talk about that isn't the schedule or the kids or the bills. You walk out of a show or a gallery with something new between you, a shared thing, an opinion to chew on, a song stuck in both your heads. That's what these nights are really for. Not the art itself so much as what it stirs up between the two of you on the drive home.

So pick one. Check the calendar this week, actually buy the tickets, put the date on the fridge where you'll both see it. Get a little dressed up if it's that kind of night. And go be two people out at the theater again, the way you were before life got so full.

God made us to love beauty, and He dropped a good bit of it right here in Omaha, on stages and gallery walls and summer lawns. Go take some of it in together.

If you want more nights out that don't cost a fortune, our budget date nights under $30 guide and the whole Omaha date night collection have plenty. And if a show turns into a whole evening, our most romantic walks in Omaha guide has some pretty places to wander after.