Event Archives

Join us at the Los Angeles Festival of Books on Saturday, April 22, for a Willa Cather Sesquicentennial Celebration!

It will take place on the Poetry Stage, from 5:40-6:00 p.m. at the University of Southern California campus.

A sampling of readings will be presented by National Willa Cather Center board of governors member, and Los Angeles resident, Peter Cipkowski. This is a FREE event that is part of the Los Angeles Times Book Festival.

Help us welcome poet Bruce Whitacre to Red Cloud! Whitacre will be reading poetry from his book The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks. The book celebrates the life of Jennie Hicks, a landscape painter from rural Nebraska who also happens to be Whitacre's great-grandmother. Hicks' paintings will be displayed at the Dawson County Historical Society and Museum in Lexington, Nebraska, from February 10 – August 31, 2023.

Celebrate National Poetry Month with us! Poet Jamaica Baldwin will be on hand for a special poetry reading and discussion in anticipation of Bone Language, her brand new collection of poems. You can register for the event here. Bone Language is also available for pre-order from our bookstore and will be published in June, 2023.

Welcome Spring to the prairie on First Friday, April 7, with tours, prairie readings, an artist reception and a special movie screening.

Kick off National Poetry Month in April with this dynamic group of writers and performers who are touring the state to bring poetry to rural communities.

Experience beautiful artistic interpretations of the Sandhill cranes and meet the artist on April 7!

We are proud to bring memoirist Taylor Brorby to our author series for a discussion about his book Boys and Oil: Growing up gay in a fractured land. Brorby will read from his book, an account of his childhood and adolescence in Center, North Dakota interwoven with historic coal-country vignettes. Of Brorby's book New York Times critic Jung Yun writes, "a good memoir allows readers to find moments of common ground with the author.

This show is Sold Out!

Our Red Cloud Opera House 20th anniversary celebration continues with Blackberry Winter! Their playlist always includes a wide selection of iconic 60s and 70s tunes that highlight their unique musical style that you won't want to miss. Let's make their return performance another sold out show!

With special thanks to our sponsors for this event, Tru-Built Construction, Dennis and Sally Hansen, and Red Cloud Animal Health.

The Red Cloud Opera House is pleased to welcome once again the the Association of Nebraska Art Clubs traveling exhibition. ANAC, whose president is Christi Lewis of Red Cloud, supports a twenty-five piece juried exhibition each year that travels across the entire state. This year's judge was Mary Binford Miller, a member of Oil Painters of America and the Kansas Academy of Oil Painters. In March, you can see the ANAC show in the Red Cloud Opera House auditorium, beginning with First Friday, March 3!

Animal Engine Theatre Company presents an original play, Henrietta Solway, commissioned by the National Willa Cather Center, that combines the short fiction and serialized novels of Willa Cather into one epic story. When a tomboy growing up in a small Midwestern town is befriended by a glamorous opera singer with tales of art and culture in the big city, her restless passion is given purpose and the direction of her life is forever changed.