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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spokane’s Donohue happy to be ‘Hamlet’ at Ashland

Brooke Shelman, an escort for the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, works with Miss Tokushima, the Japanese “friendship doll” that will be part of an exhibit to be displayed at the MAC.

Everybody knows that Hamlet is from Denmark. But did you know that the Hamlet at this year’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is from Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane?

Dan Donohue, a Spokane product, is tackling the role that all classical actors aspire to.

I saw Donohue’s “Hamlet” last month during an Ashland visit, and his performance was mesmerizing. Donohue plays the famously indecisive prince as a man driven to the edge of madness by grief, anger, guilt and the visceral desire for revenge.

This “Hamlet” is so intense, it took my heart rate an hour or two to come down after the final curtain.

Donohue first came to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1993, after attending Whitman College and Penn State University, where he got his master’s degree in acting.

He started out with small roles, but by 1999, at age 32, the festival already realized he was a special talent. That year, Donohue was given a plum role for a young Shakespearean actor, Prince Hal, who later becomes King Henry V.

Donohue has been a mainstay of the festival ever since, playing such big roles as Iago in “Othello” and Mark Antony in “Julius Caesar.”

And now, he has been rewarded with the role of a career.

“Hamlet” continues through Oct. 30 at the indoor Angus Bowmer Theater. Donohue is also in the musical “She Loves Me,” also at the Bowmer.

For tickets and information, go to www.osfashland.org or call (800) 219-8161.

Remembering Homer Mason

The passing of the immensely talented Homer C. Mason, 92, on June 24 will leave a void in the Spokane broadcasting and theater scenes.

He was one of Spokane’s pioneer TV broadcasters, joining KHQ-TV at its birth in 1952. He remained at the station in various capacities – TV program director, production manager and operations manager – for 37 years.

Many people knew Mason through his other passion, theater. He was an actor and director with the Spokane Civic Theatre almost since its inception and was in dozens of shows.

He won a Civic Best Director Award in 1963 for “The Miracle Worker” and a Spokane Critic’s Circle Award for Best Actor in 2001 for “You Can’t Take It With You.”

Mason appeared onstage as recently as 2004 in “Over the River and Through the Woods” at the Civic.

Golf with Dennis Franz?

The Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre wants you to play golf with Dennis Franz, the “NYPD Blue” actor who now lives (and golfs) in the Coeur d’Alene area.

You can buy tickets for $5 each for a drawing to win a “Golf With Dennis” package. You and a friend will join Franz and a friend on the Coeur d’Alene Resort Course, along with various other prizes.

Sound like fun? Tickets are available through the theater box office, (208) 769-7780.

New GU choral director

Gonzaga University has named a new director of choral activities, Timothy Westerhaus.

Westerhaus is completing his doctorate at Boston University and has conducted choral ensembles throughout the United States and Europe. He’s also an accomplished singer (a tenor) and pianist.

He’ll take over his duties at GU this fall.

‘Snapped’ in Valley

Maybe Valley, Wash., north of Spokane, does not strike you as the new Tinseltown.

But a Valley-based producer and director, Bill Nelson, is filming his second feature, “Snapped,” in and around that town.

He describes it as an “ultra-low-budget” suspense thriller. It stars Billy St. John, a Los Angeles actor whose biggest credit was a role in Adam Sandler’s 2002 “Mr. Deeds.”

Nelson said he got the movie bug a few years ago and started writing scripts. Then he bought some cameras and lights and decided to film them himself.

In 2006, he made his first feature, “The Wages of Sin,” a low-budget horror movie. He and his wife, Teresa Nelson, also specialize in underwater filming and have produced a dive documentary about the Bikini Atoll.

They hope to have filming of “Snapped” wrapped up by July 18.

The MAC’s Friendship Doll

The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC) is sending its Japanese “friendship doll,” nicknamed Miss Tokushima, back to the Tokushima prefecture of Japan for a homecoming visit.

It’s one of 58 formal display dolls that Japan sent to the U.S. in the 1920s as a friendship gesture. Many of the dolls have returned to Japan for visits since then. Now, it’s Miss Tokushima’s turn.

She will be displayed in four museums in Japan in an exhibit titled “The Doll Who Crossed the Sea.”

The doll will be accompanied a representative from the MAC; they leave on Monday. This will also be a chance for Miss Tokushima to be spruced up and restored by the original manufacturer.

This came about partly due to the efforts of Michiko Takaoka, past director of the Japanese Cultural Center at Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute in Spokane. She got to know Miss Tokushima and has helped in arrangements to bring her home for a visit.

The doll will return to the MAC after several months.

Two Humanities grants

Two Spokane organizations received Humanities Washington grants last week:

• Gonzaga University Visiting Writers Series, $7,500 to host four authors.

• Tincan, a local nonprofit that uses interactive media and technology to further education and community development, $7,130 to present a multimedia project titled “Veteran’s Voices – Recollections of Vietnam.”