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The Omaha Community Playhouse, located at 69th and Underwood Streets in Omaha, Nebraska, is a nationally recognized community theater.
Founded in 1924, the Playhouse's first president was Alan McDonald, architect of the Joslyn Art Museum, and its first play, directed by Greg Foleyin April 1925, was The Enchanted Cottage, which starred Dodie Brando, mother of Marlon Brando, and Jayne Fonda. When, later in the Playhouse's first season, the need arose for a young man to play the lead for You and I, Brando found the twenty-year-old Henry Fonda, son of her friend Herberta Fonda, for the part. It was Fonda's first acting role. The Playhouse would later see the acting debut of Marlon Brando, Dorothy McGuire, and Julie Wilson, and appearances by Letitia Baldridge, Glenn Cunningham, and Lenka Peterson.
The Playhouse experienced tremendous growth throughout the 1980s and 1990s under the direction of Charles Jones. By the time Jones resigned in 1997 the Playhouse was widely considered the best of its kind in the United States, and had the largest financial endowment of any community theater in the nation due to the generosity of Margre Durham.
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