It’s no secret that many rural Nebraskans have a different worldview than lots of city folks. And they have strong opinions about how “the good life” should be lived. 

 

Playwright Alex Lubischer, who grew up in tiny Humphrey, NE (midway between Columbus and Norfolk), has mined those differences for both humor and drama in “Pivot,” a thought-provoking play opening Thursday at the Shelterbelt Theatre. 

 

“Pivot” centers on a farm family that uses center-pivot irrigation near the fictional town of Milton, NE. George van Acren is nearing retirement. His son, Levi, is ready to take over the family farm as his dad battles cancer. 

 

The play happens over four days when Levi’s planned marriage to Kara is thrown into chaos at the last minute, leaving characters pivoting on their futures — and their thinking.

 

Kara didn’t grow up a farm girl in Nebraska. She and Levi want to try farming without heavy pesticide and fertilizer use. When Levi went away to college, his views changed, along with his relationship to his dad. George struggles with that, and with outspoken, headstrong Kara. 

 

Doug, Levi’s recently divorced best man, left Milton after college. Anne, George’s second wife after Levi’s mom died, is fairly new to the family. Father Matt, the local Catholic priest, is so new to Milton he had to ask what a center pivot is. 

 

The play’s many plot twists leave its characters desperate to find their footing and a new path forward, along with a sense of connection. 

 

Lubischer found his own views in flux as he earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Southern California and an MFA at the Yale School of Drama. After living in New York City for a time, he moved to Chicago, where he has taught playwriting at the Goodman Theatre and DePaul University. 

 

“I’m quite close to my family, and in many ways I carry the values I grew up with,” Lubischer said in a phone interview from Chicago last week. “But those views are informed by having gone to college in LA and Yale and living in New York. They changed me. Sometimes there is a tension, felt side by side with a love for where I come from.”

 

In particular, he said, gender roles are strongly codified in rural Nebraska, and most people there adhere to them.

 

“More so than in Chicago, there’s an understanding that men are this way, women are that way,” he said. “Who fills the mode and who doesn’t, who gets to belong and who doesn’t, when somebody who’s an insider finds themselves on the outside — that’s something I’m interested in.” 

 

Yale mounted a full production of “Pivot,” which was Lubischer’s MFA thesis project. The revised play had a reading at last summer’s Great Plains Theatre Commons in Omaha, which Lubischer attended. 

 

“It’s really rewarding for me to get to see this play done in Nebraska,” he said. “I hope all sorts of folks from small towns and farmers who live off the land make it into Omaha to see the play.”

 

A stage, movie or TV script set in rural Nebraska is rare, though Lubischer is a fan of Omaha-born writer-director Alexander Payne’s movie “Nebraska.” Lubischer said it’s even rarer for someone from a Nebraska farm background to find a career writing scripts. Theatre, in particular, faces an additional challenge for writers, he said. 

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“Cinema is 80 percent visual and 20 percent aural. Theatre tends to be opposite. A lot information is conveyed through dialogue. It’s hard to get the land onto the stage.”

 

So, how to convey the vastness of a Nebraska sky and the strong desire to farm?

 

“You have to be really crafty to get that land onto the stage,” Lubischer said. “The lynchpin that allowed me to smuggle this into the play was a wedding, the norms and rituals surrounding it, having a wedding reception in a barn. That helped to pave those larger conversations.”

 

Neither Daena Schweiger, who is directing “Pivot” at Shelterbelt, nor her cast was a part of last year’s Great Plains reading. Schweiger said auditions drew a flood of talent, and she could have cast the play several times over. 

 

She chose Sydney Readman as Kara, Bill Hutson as George, Therese Rennels as Anne and Josh Peyton as Doug. Nick LeMay plays not only Levi, but also Father Matt and Ryan, a restaurant waiter. The minimalist set design is by Bill Van Deest, and Schweiger is also designing sound. 

 

Schweiger met Lubischer last summer and has gotten insights since about his intentions behind plot points, characters and even the ryhthms of certain line readings. 

 

“When we did the first read-through with the cast, we invited him to sit in on that,” which he did via remote video, Schweiger said. “The actors had the chance to ask questions and get insights into his growing up in Humphrey.” 

 

When he begins writing, Lubischer said, he knows some of what he’s after. 

 

“I don’t know the ending. It’s not mapped out before I start,” he said. For example, he knew how he wanted the first scene to end. 

 

“Most other twists I found by writing and rewriting. That can be frustrating. Sometimes when you discover something, you have to throw out 30 pages. The benefit is, if I’m surprised, that will also be given to the audience.”

 

Navigating those sudden twists and turns became the challenge for Schweiger and her cast. 

 

“You can have your life mapped out, and it can change in an instant,” Schweiger said. “A lot of these characters have things mapped out. Circumstances change. Thought processes change. How they interact changes. Each character has that moment when they have to pivot in their thinking.” 

 

“Pivot” runs through Sept 14.

                                                                --Bob Fischbach, retired Omaha World Herald Theatre Critic