J. Omar Hansen

J. Omar Hansen

Omar is an award-winning playwright and was the recipient of the Idaho Fellowship for the Arts in 2012 for his contributions as a playwright/ composer. He has had plays produced all over the country, and has one play published thus far. Last year he had 8 different productions of his plays being performed.
Omar has run a successful children’s theatre for the past sixteen years. He is a proud member of...
Omar is an award-winning playwright and was the recipient of the Idaho Fellowship for the Arts in 2012 for his contributions as a playwright/ composer. He has had plays produced all over the country, and has one play published thus far. Last year he had 8 different productions of his plays being performed.
Omar has run a successful children’s theatre for the past sixteen years. He is a proud member of Dramatists Guild, and is also an actor, novelist, children’s writer, and storyteller. He and his wife, Lori, are the co-founders of the Great Bear Folk Theatre, a storytelling theatre company.
His educational background includes a MA in Playwriting and Theatre History from Cal State, LA, an MFA in Playwriting and Theatre History from the University of Utah, and a PhD from Brigham Young University in Theatre History and Playwriting. He is currently on faculty at BYU-Idaho.

Plays

  • Pioneer Song by J. Omar Hansen
    Cast: 
    21–25
    ·
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: American Musicals, American history + 4 more
    Genre: docudrama/historic, drama, musical, period
    Keyword: American Musicals, American history, pioneers, Oregon trail, women's struggles, narrative theatre
    Ruth Mariman, a disillusioned widow of the 1850’s, with her three daughters begins the journey across the country on the Oregon Trail. She is seeking a new life, hoping to find joy, a song, as she calls it, to fill the void that her loveless marriage never could.
    Ruth befriends a group of women, all damaged in different ways, and they form tight friendships. Each must face their own demons—Sonja,...
    Ruth Mariman, a disillusioned widow of the 1850’s, with her three daughters begins the journey across the country on the Oregon Trail. She is seeking a new life, hoping to find joy, a song, as she calls it, to fill the void that her loveless marriage never could.
    Ruth befriends a group of women, all damaged in different ways, and they form tight friendships. Each must face their own demons—Sonja, married to a battering drunk, Mary Dove, a consumptive prostitute, Faith and Mercy, two puritanical gossips.
    As the journey progresses, we periodically meet “the dead” –who each tell their own stories. As Ruth says “the men count the miles, the women count the graves.”
    Ruth herself must face losing her three daughters, each differently.
    Ultimately, Ruth survives more than she thought humanly possible, but has also found love, and an inner strength and peace. She has found her song.

  • Bielzy and Gottfried by J. Omar Hansen
    Cast: 
    10–18
    ·
    Genre: musical, satire
    Genre: musical, satire
    What if God and the Devil joined forces and wrote a play? Lucius Bielzy and Joshua Gottfried, two old friends and theatre impresarios caught in an eternal love/hate relationship, rendezvous in a theatre to present a night of 5 short morality plays. Imagine a confused Adam and Pandora, a man claiming to be Joseph McCarthy, hoping to cast the first stone, a middle-aged woman in spiritual meltdown, bordering on...
    What if God and the Devil joined forces and wrote a play? Lucius Bielzy and Joshua Gottfried, two old friends and theatre impresarios caught in an eternal love/hate relationship, rendezvous in a theatre to present a night of 5 short morality plays. Imagine a confused Adam and Pandora, a man claiming to be Joseph McCarthy, hoping to cast the first stone, a middle-aged woman in spiritual meltdown, bordering on the obscene, a modern-day Job caught in the battle over free will, and a dead man, unable to move on to his new future because he cannot face up to his past. A humorous and poignant look at mankind’s relationship to the cosmos.

    Omar’s musical Bielzy and Gottfried was presented in July of 2014 as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival and received a nomination for outstanding production of a Musical. One of the reviews said of that show, “a witty beginning, and a thought-provoking end, Bielzy and Gottfried proved to be a charming and meaningful piece which managed to make the Bible less dry and more dry-humored.” Other reviews of the show said, “a fascinating show that asks difficult questions” “good laughs, fun music, and thought provoking messages” “tugs at the audience’s heartstrings”.
  • Clever Jack and the Pirates by J. Omar Hansen
    Cast: 
    15–20
    ·
    Genre: adventure, comedy + 3 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, fable/folktale, musical, young audiences
    Clever Jack loves Sari Farmer, but he’s the poorest boy in town and Mr. Farmer is against the match. Jack sets out with a horse, dog, cat and chicken to seek his fortune, so he can come home and marry Sari. But Willard, Mr. Farmer’s confidante and all around mean pig, follows him to thwart his plan. Can Jack steal the already stolen fortune from a band of misfit pirates? Will the animals get a new home?...
    Clever Jack loves Sari Farmer, but he’s the poorest boy in town and Mr. Farmer is against the match. Jack sets out with a horse, dog, cat and chicken to seek his fortune, so he can come home and marry Sari. But Willard, Mr. Farmer’s confidante and all around mean pig, follows him to thwart his plan. Can Jack steal the already stolen fortune from a band of misfit pirates? Will the animals get a new home? Will Willard be recognized for the manipulative pig he is? “Clever Jack and the Pirates” is a rip-roarin’ good time of a musical adaptation of that classic folktale The Bremen Town Musicians.
  • This Castle Needs a Good Scouring by J. Omar Hansen
    Cast: 
    13–17
    ·
    Genre: comedy, farce + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, farce, musical
    This romp through the Cinderella story features a Cinderella who would rather clean than go to the ball, a miserly king, and a fairy godmother on the verge of a breakdown.
  • The Horrible Monster of Danky Swamp by J. Omar Hansen
    Cast: 
    10
    ·
    Genre: comedy, melodrama + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, melodrama, young audiences
    While being tormented by the evil witch Filangela Wantonlooper, and with the aid of their yeomanlike manservant, Angus Largehead, three young heroines, two scatterbrained and one smart, seek to find and conquer the horrible monster of Danky Swamp, since cattle, and eligible men of the matrimonial age, are missing.
  • The Crones Revenge by J. Omar Hansen
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: adventure, comedy + 2 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, melodrama, movement/physical
    Five 19th century actors find themselves lost in a deep wood on Halloween near Williamsburg, Virginia. To escape, they are forced by a mysterious old crone to tell the story of Katherine Grady, a proper young English woman who must find the strength within herself to overcome the wicked advances of an amorous Sea Captain, his miscreant helpers, unscrupulous civic authorities, a duo of Macbethian witches, and a...
    Five 19th century actors find themselves lost in a deep wood on Halloween near Williamsburg, Virginia. To escape, they are forced by a mysterious old crone to tell the story of Katherine Grady, a proper young English woman who must find the strength within herself to overcome the wicked advances of an amorous Sea Captain, his miscreant helpers, unscrupulous civic authorities, a duo of Macbethian witches, and a variety of numskulls, all while finding true love in a new country. The story takes place in the early 18th century on the English ship “The Goodwife," in Williamsburg, Virginia, and wooded forests near Williamsburg.