Quinn Metal Corbin is manager of the Great Plains Theater Commons. Corbin has spent more than two decades in the performing arts. She’s worked as a casting intern in New York, a script production assistant on a Broadway musical, an assistant to a powerful entertainment agency executive, and an event coordinator for the National Theatre in London among other roles.

In addition to her industry jobs, Corbin founded C+C Mini Factory alongside Chelsea Cates. C+C is a photography project featuring miniature figurines placed in quirky settings. They’ve collaborated with companies like Starbucks and Firefox and were awarded Instagrammer of the Year in 2015 by the Shorty Awards. 

As manager of the nonprofit Great Plains Theatre Commons, Corbin works to strengthen the local theater scene by fostering new work by playwrights and other theater artists through year-round programming and the annual New Play Festival, which takes place this year from May 25 to 31.

Corbin and Michael Griffin are talking about Corbin's odyssey in the entertainment industry, GPTC’s mission and how it fits into the changing landscape of live performance.

Shaq Jones, aka Scottie Pigeon, is a dancer and DJ.

Jones uses his platform to center the experience of Black men in the arts. He grew up in North Omaha and attended Lincoln University of Missouri, a historically Black college, where he led the school’s dance troupe before graduating in 2017. He returned to Omaha and began collaborating with various performing arts organizations around town, including AP’s Legacy Dance Studio, the annual Omaha Beautillion event, Omaha Performing Arts and Opera Omaha.

Scottie Pigeon is Jones’ DJ persona. He began teaching himself the skill in 2019 at the encouragement of his father, who is also a DJ. 

The Union for Contemporary Arts selected Jones for the 2024 Inside/Outside Fellowship, where his work centered on sound and movement exploration.

Jones and Michael Griffin are talking about where Jones finds inspiration, how his dance and DJ experiences inform each other, and how he uses his work to curate emotional experiences for an audience.

Kevin Clouther is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha Writer’s Workshop, where he serves as program coordinator of the Master of Fine Arts in Writing.

Clouther is also the author of the story collections “Maximum Speed” and “We Were Flying to Chicago.” His stories have appeared in Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, Joyland, New Orleans Review, Ruminate and StoryQuarterly, among other journals. He holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is the recipient of the Richard Yates Fiction Award and Gell Residency Award.

In this episode, Clouther and Michael Griffin are talking about UNO’s MFA program, his love of fiction and the ritual of reading.

Dirty Birds, located in the Flatiron building at 17th and St. Mary’s Avenue, is known for its fried chicken and cocktail menu. Matthew Moseley and Dan Whalen opened the restaurant in early 2021 with a goal of serving quality food in a community-oriented space. Business partner Mike West joined the team shortly after. Guy Fieri visited Dirty Birds in 2023 for an episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.” 

In this episode, Michael Griffin is talking with Moseley and Whalen about their culinary history, their emphasis on giving back to the community, and how they took Dirty Birds from pop-up to brick-and-mortar.

Brenton Gomez is a fixture of Omaha’s rap and skateboarding scenes. You may know him as Conny Franko, the name under which he’s been releasing music for the better part of two decades. He’s half of the hip-hop duo M34N STR33T with producer Adam Haug.

Skateboarding was Gomez’s first love. His experiences street skating as a kid inspired him to spend much of his adult life advocating for skate park construction. In 2018, Gomez and his friends built ramps and rails on the unused tennis courts of Lynch Park on South 20th Street. In 2023, he helped convince the city to use ARPA funds to build an even better skating facility on the site.

When Gomez isn’t skating or rapping, he’s a program coordinator at the Kiewit Luminarium. He’s also an avid reader who cites Gabriel García Márquez as one of his favorite authors.

In this episode, Gomez is in conversation with Michael Griffin about how he forged his own path as a skater, artist and musician in Omaha’s DIY scenes.

Xavier Jackson is founder and CEO of Local Art Plug. An Omaha native, Jackson started the business in 2017 to connect artists with art lovers. Musicians and artists can find audiences through the organization’s website, which has pieces for sale, and a gallery space in the Flatiron Building downtown. 

Local Art Plug’s services also include subscription plans for individuals and businesses. Subscribers can lease a work to “test drive” before buying it, or they can pay to have their collection rotated out with new pieces once every three months.

In this conversation, Jackson and Michael Griffin discuss ways artists can advocate for themselves, the essential role of resources in the creative process, and how Omaha can better support local artists.

Carmen Winant is an artist, photographer, writer, and art professor at The Ohio State University. Her work involves installation and collage work to examine survival and revolt through a feminist lens. Her traveling exhibition “The last safe abortion” opens Jan. 18 at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. 

“The last safe abortion” is an exploration of women’s health clinics and abortion providers, with a particular focus on the Midwest. The installation is composed of photos of behind-the-scenes work related to reproductive healthcare, such as answering phones, sterilizing equipment, conducting training sessions and scheduling appointments. 

Bemis’ Rachel Adams curated the exhibition, which was organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Art. “The last safe abortion” will be displayed alongside “Synchronicities: Intersecting Figuration with Abstraction.” The installations will run concurrently through May 4.

In this episode, Winant is in conversation with Maria Corpuz about the origins of “The last safe abortion,” the logistics of how she put it together, and how Winant’s art has been affected by the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

It's our 200th episode, and we're doing something a little different this week. In this episode, Michael Griffin is in conversation with producer Courtney Bierman.

A quick note on episode numbers: if you’re listening to the podcast version of this show, you’ll notice it lists this episode as number 218. That’s because show creator Tom Knoblauch started the count when Riverside Chats was a series of live conversations in Benson. We’re counting from the first episode that played on KIOS airwaves in 2020.

Bierman, an Omaha native, graduated from the University of Kansas in 2019 with degrees in journalism and film. While at KU, she served as the arts and culture editor for the University Daily Kansan and completed a summer internship at KCUR, Kansas City's NPR member station.

She joined KIOS in 2020 and hosts programming every weekday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.. In addition to Riverside Chats, she produces the local shows Faturday Omaha, Lives and The Entertainment.

Bierman also works weekends at Film Streams. You can find her behind the concessions counter at either location, and she’d love it if you said hello.

Bierman and Griffin discuss the behind-the-scenes production process in radio, the organizational structure of KIOS, and whether it is too late for her to become a film critic.

Todd Lemke is the founder and publisher of Omaha Magazine, a 42-year-old regional publication covering the arts, lifestyle, entertainment, food and more.

Lemke grew up in Papillion and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1981 with a degree in journalism. In 1983, he started a print publication called Omaha Today, which eventually became Omaha Magazine. 

Omaha Magazine is behind the annual Best of Omaha list, Faces of Omaha, Faces of Lincoln, the new North Omaha First, and other special publications. It has been honored by the Great Plains Journalism Awards, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and by the Omaha Press Club.

In this episode, Lemke and Michael Griffin are discussing the origin of the magazine, the intersection of advertising and journalism, and what Lemke has learned in his 40 years in the industry.

Joshua Brown is the program coordinator at the Nebraska Arts Council, a state organization whose mission is to promote, cultivate and sustain the arts through programming, grants and opportunities to foster creative innovation statewide.

At the Arts Council, Brown manages grants related to arts education and accessibility. Outside of his work with the Arts Council, he also serves as a visual artist and musician, exhibiting paintings and sculptures at community galleries in Omaha and organizing shows that support emerging and community-oriented artists.

A University of Nebraska Omaha graduate, Brown has a degree in art history and is also working toward a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Nebraska Kearney. His studies have led him to explore the connections between power, government and the arts, focusing on how governments can foster environments that encourage community-oriented arts and culture.

In this episode Brown and Michael Griffin are talking about art as rhetoric and why it’s essential for a healthy democracy, and how Brown’s worldview was shaped by homeschooling and an early appreciation for art of all kinds.

Jahmai Brown is a painter, photographer and Hot Shops Art Center resident. 

An Omaha native, Brown attended North High School and graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute. His paintings are often works of bright colors, bold patterns and less traditional materials like glitter and magazine clippings. 

Brown was also among the artists who created the “Black Skies” mural in 2018 at 24th and Grant Streets, which highlights the experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen. Brown was only 17 when the mural was unveiled to the public.

In this episode, Brown and Michael Griffin are talking about the inspiration behind his work, and his hope for viewers to interact with it. They're also talking about the skills he thinks are important for a young artist to develop, and how those artists can find support in Omaha.