The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
47°F
Current Conditions
Overcast clouds
View complete weather report
Subscribe now

Nathan Weinbender

This individual is no longer an employee with The Spokesman-Review.

All Stories

A&E >  Entertainment

Make the last night of 2013 count

The theme for this year’s First Night Spokane is “Once Upon a Night: Art Comes Alive,” and that seems as appropriate a name as any: Every year since its inception in 2001, First Night practically transforms downtown Spokane, bringing it to life from the last evening of December to the first morning of January. Music, dancing, arts and crafts and a fireworks display to ring in the New Year – there’s a whole lot to do. Although we’re merely scratching the surface (after all, there are at least 150 individual performances and exhibits to take in), here are some events you should be sure to check out at this year’s festivities.
A&E >  Entertainment

‘Grudge’ moves EWU-grad screenwriter into high-profile movie world

There’s a scene in “The Godfather Part II” where Michael Corleone’s business partner Hyman Roth, played by Lee Strasberg, gives a famous speech discussing the murder of his friend, mobster Moe Green: “This is the business we’ve chosen,” he says. “I didn’t ask who gave the orders.” Tim Kelleher quotes this line of dialogue when discussing his long career as a film and television writer, where you can’t be married to every line you commit to paper. “That’s kind of the way I feel – you’re going to be rewritten, chances are,” Kelleher said in a recent phone interview. “And if you can’t deal with that, you shouldn’t be in the business.”
News >  Features

After incredible run on ‘America’s Got Talent,’ Spokane singer eager to see what exposure may bring

When Cami Bradley was eliminated from the NBC talent show “America’s Got Talent” in September, it marked the end of one journey and the beginning of another. On the stage at Radio City Music Hall in front of a television audience of more than 11 million viewers, the 25-year-old Spokane singer-songwriter learned she would be going home in sixth place, the first casualty in the final round of the series’ eighth season. Looking back on that moment now, Bradley says that the first feeling to seize her wasn’t regret or disappointment, or even sadness. It was relief.
A&E >  Entertainment

Seasonal showcase

This weekend, the Bing Crosby Theater is offering up two holiday-themed vocalist showcases just in time for Christmas: “Harmony for the Holidays,” which stars tenor Jonathan Mancheni and soprano Isabella Ivy, and “Christmas at the Bing,” a night of music hosted by Douglas Webster and featuring performances from several vocalists, including locals Krista Kubicek and Max Mendez. “Harmony” is a sort of two-hander featuring Mancheni and Ivy, trained opera singers who have been dating for a little over a year. The program is a mixture of standard Christmas classics (“O Come All Ye Faithful,” “White Christmas,” “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”) and less traditional picks, such as “Let’s Drink from the Joyful Cup” from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “La Traviata” and “Lonely House” from the 1946 musical “Street Scene.”
A&E >  Entertainment

Symphony puts signature on Christmas

Christmas is a time when we get together with family to watch the same holiday specials, sing the same carols and squeeze into the same scratchy red and green sweaters as we did the year before. There’s something comforting about seasonal predictability, but that festive repetition can get to be a bit monotonous. That’s the dilemma the Spokane Symphony faces every year when putting together the annual Holiday Pops concerts: How do you take the most famous tunes, the songs everyone in the crowd has heard countless times before and can recite from memory, and make them sound fresh and original?
News >  Features

Interplayers continues holiday laughs with ‘Away in the Basement’

Because the “Church Basement Ladies” musicals are so firmly rooted in the spirits and traditions of mid-20th century Minnesota, Spokane in 2013 seems like an odd place for them to really click with audiences. And yet they’ve found a sort of second home at Interplayers Theatre, which today is hosting the Northwest premiere of another entry in the “Church Basement” series, “Away in the Basement,” a Christmas-based prequel to the first “Basement” story.
A&E >  Entertainment

Symphony puts signature on Christmas

Christmas is a time when we get together with family to watch the same holiday specials, sing the same carols and squeeze into the same scratchy red and green sweaters as we did the year before. There’s something comforting about seasonal predictability, but that festive repetition can get to be a bit monotonous. That’s the dilemma the Spokane Symphony faces every year when putting together the annual Holiday Pops concerts: How do you take the most famous tunes, the songs everyone in the crowd has heard countless times before and can recite from memory, and make them sound fresh and original?
A&E >  Entertainment

Dreaming of a Bing Christmas

There are a number of reasons Bing Crosby is inextricably linked to the holiday season, but the biggest one is the Irving Berlin song “White Christmas” that Crosby made famous. It was the biggest hit of Crosby’s career – and widely acknowledged as the biggest selling single of all time – and he sang it in three different films: “Holiday Inn” (1942), “Blue Skies” (1946) and, of course, “White Christmas” (1954).
A&E >  Entertainment

Holiday film genre has hidden, offbeat gems

‘It’s a Wonderful Life.” “Miracle on 34th Street.” “Holiday Inn.” “A Christmas Story.” “Elf.” Turn on your TV at any point during the holiday season and any of these movies are bound to show up at some point. As great as they may be, you start to crave a little more variety every time an angel gets its wings or Natalie Wood tugs on Kris Kringle’s beard. Christmas is as much about tradition as anything else, which is why we tend to watch the same movies every year. But for anyone looking for something a bit different, here are eight cinematic offerings that might help you put together a more offbeat Christmas film festival. These films may have tinseled trees, guys in big red suits and snow as far as the eye can see, but they’re certainly not traditional and, with the exception of a couple, are best enjoyed after the little ones go to bed.
A&E >  Entertainment

Million dollar moment

When they started goofing off around a piano at Memphis’ famed Sun Studios on Dec. 4, 1956, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins had no idea their impromptu jam session would become a significant piece of rock ’n’ roll history. Later billed as the Million Dollar Quartet, the four musicians were visiting the studios for different reasons – Perkins was recording new material with Lewis on piano, and both Cash and Presley were just dropping by – but ended up convening to play for a couple of hours. Recordings of the session existed as bootlegs for years before being officially released in the early ’90s, and a jukebox musical that fictionalizes that afternoon in ’56, also called “Million Dollar Quartet,” first premiered onstage in 2006.
News >  Features

Stage show chronicles elf’s true tribulations

In December 1992, humorist David Sedaris made his debut on National Public Radio reading an essay titled “SantaLand Diaries,” a witty, acerbic account of the author’s experiences working as an elf in Macy’s SantaLand in New York City. The appearance jump-started Sedaris’ career – he has since become a best-selling author, with collections including “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” and “Me Talk Pretty One Day” – and NPR re-airs “SantaLand Diaries” every holiday season. Four years after its radio debut, “Diaries” was adapted into a one-man stage show by Tony Award-winning director Joe Mantello. Coeur d’Alene’s Lake City Playhouse opens its version of the show Friday night, directed by Heather Bingman and starring Doug Dawson as the disgruntled department store elf known as Crumpet.
A&E >  Entertainment

Stage show chronicles elf’s true tribulations

In December 1992, humorist David Sedaris made his debut on National Public Radio reading an essay titled “SantaLand Diaries,” a witty, acerbic account of the author’s experiences working as an elf in Macy’s SantaLand in New York City. The appearance jump-started Sedaris’ career – he has since become a best-selling author, with collections including “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” and “Me Talk Pretty One Day” – and NPR re-airs “SantaLand Diaries” every holiday season. Four years after its radio debut, “Diaries” was adapted into a one-man stage show by Tony Award-winning director Joe Mantello. Coeur d’Alene’s Lake City Playhouse opens its version of the show Friday night, directed by Heather Bingman and starring Doug Dawson as the disgruntled department store elf known as Crumpet.
A&E >  Entertainment

Opener Mudhoney will set tone solidly in grunge

If the prospect of seeing Pearl Jam this weekend fills you with ’90s nostalgia, then listening to Mudhoney, who will be opening for Eddie Vedder and company, will really make you feel like you’re back in the grunge era. Although Mudhoney never achieved the same mainstream success as Pearl Jam – or their Pacific Northwest brethren Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Nirvana, for that matter – they’re flip sides of the same coin. Both bands were products of the Seattle hard rock scene of the late ’80s and early ’90s, and both feature gruff lead singers and big, crunchy guitars. But Mudhoney’s music has always favored irreverence over gloss, closer to a garage band than a polished arena rock outfit.
A&E >  Entertainment

Putting a special touch on a holiday staple

It’s become as reliable a tradition as any: Every year around Christmas, like clockwork, P.I. Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet “The Nutcracker” is performed all over the world. The State Street Ballet, which is based in Santa Barbara, Calif., has toured internationally with its version of the holiday favorite, and next week marks its third consecutive year performing with the Spokane Symphony. We spoke with three people who are involved in the Symphony’s upcoming production about their personal relationships with “The Nutcracker” and why it remains important as a Christmas tradition.
News >  Features

Spokane Civic Theatre’s ‘Christmas Schooner’ watertight

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that there are no second acts in American lives, but in the case of the characters in “The Christmas Schooner,” it’s the second act that brings them to life. Written by John Reeger, with music and lyrics by Julie Shannon, it’s a musical that explores the spirit of the holidays and the immigrant experience in America. It begins in 1881 in Manistique, Mich., as a family of Germans prepares for Christmas in America. The Stossels – Peter (Bryan Agee), Alma (Heidi Santiago), and their young son, Karl (Jordan Santiago) – have embraced American customs while still recognizing their German heritage, and while Peter’s stodgy father, Gustav (Gary Pierce), still clings desperately to Old World traditions.
A&E >  Entertainment

Cummins draws from the dark side

On his latest album “Hear This,” comedian Dan Cummins recognizes how weird his job is. “The most common question I get is, ‘So, you gonna be funny tonight?’” he says. “If it was up to me, yes. That’s the horrible part of this job. I have to rely on a lot of other people to get it done every single time.” That gag seems to sum up Cummins’ stand-up persona: He’s a gleeful misanthropist, particularly perceptive at spotting the worst in others (example: blaming your audience for not laughing at your jokes), and his material, which combines the absurdist with the observational, frequently veers unexpectedly into darkness. It’s like Jerry Seinfeld by way of Mitch Hedberg or Steven Wright.
A&E >  Entertainment

Meat Puppets bring enduring punk sound to the Hop

In the years he was in the spotlight, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain brought attention to a number of artists who might not otherwise have received notice. The Vaselines, the Raincoats, the Wipers, Daniel Johnston – they all benefited from Cobain’s cheerleading. None of them took the rock scene by storm the way Nirvana did, but there’s no question that Cobain played an integral part in their indie popularity.
A&E >  Entertainment

Spokane’s Quarter Monkey has roots in ’90s grunge

On the Beastie Boys’ 1986 track “Time to Get Ill,” rapper Mike D brags about his drinking abilities: “I can drink a quart of monkey and still stand still.” If you only half-listen, it sounds like he could be saying “quarter monkey.” For the Spokane rock trio Quarter Monkey, the meaning of their name has had different interpretations over the years, but the kind-of Beastie Boys reference is their go-to explanation.
A&E >  Entertainment

Meat Puppets bring enduring punk sound to the Hop

In the years he was in the spotlight, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain brought attention to a number of artists who might not otherwise have received notice. The Vaselines, the Raincoats, the Wipers, Daniel Johnston – they all benefited from Cobain’s cheerleading. None of them took the rock scene by storm the way Nirvana did, but there’s no question that Cobain played an integral part in their indie popularity.
A&E >  Entertainment

Spokane’s Quarter Monkey has roots in ’90s grunge

On the Beastie Boys’ 1986 track “Time to Get Ill,” rapper Mike D brags about his drinking abilities: “I can drink a quart of monkey and still stand still.” If you only half-listen, it sounds like he could be saying “quarter monkey.” For the Spokane rock trio Quarter Monkey, the meaning of their name has had different interpretations over the years, but the kind-of Beastie Boys reference is their go-to explanation.
News >  Features

Interplayers presents ‘Our Town’ with just eight performers

There’s an old theater adage that Thornton Wilder’s revered, Pulitzer-winning drama “Our Town” is performed at least once every day somewhere in the world. The play is a modest tableau of life, love and death in small town America, and since its debut in 1938, Wilder’s words have almost become gospel: Don’t mess around with it, and it won’t let you down. Interplayers Theatre, which premieres its interpretation of “Our Town” this Thursday, has made just one change to Wilder’s original text – they’ve cut out a single word: many.
A&E >  Entertainment

Keller Williams embraces eclectic sound

Keller Williams is a difficult musician to define. If you were to put his entire discography on shuffle, each song might sound like it’s coming from a different artist. You’ll hear country, jazz, reggae, R&B, psych rock, folk and funk, as well as a wide array of stylistic influences, from the complicated finger picking of guitarist Michael Hedges to the spacey jams of the Grateful Dead to the lo-fi goof-arounds of ’90s alt rockers Ween.
A&E >  Entertainment

Nine Inch Nails as sharp as ever

Looking back at photos and video of Trent Reznor from the late ’80s and early ’90s, black hair shielding his eyes and his face contorted in young Gen X rage, it’s hard to believe that the healthy, clean-cut guy still playing arenas is the same Trent Reznor. As the brain behind industrial rock giants Nine Inch Nails, Reznor brought a harrowing punk edge to electronic music, bridging the yawning gap between synth pop and hard rock. Reznor released NIN’s first album, 1989’s “Pretty Hate Machine,” when he was 24, and the record quickly became an underground hit.
A&E >  Entertainment

Pianist riding career momentum

Jon Nakamatsu still remembers the first time he saw a piano: He was 4 years old, and it was love at first sight. “I immediately gravitated toward it,” Nakamatsu recalled, speaking by phone from his home in San Jose, Calif. “My parents are not musical, and they were a little perplexed by me being so enthusiastic about something like that.”
A&E >  Entertainment

Nine Inch Nails as sharp as ever

Looking back at photos and video of Trent Reznor from the late ’80s and early ’90s, black hair shielding his eyes and his face contorted in young Gen X rage, it’s hard to believe that the healthy, clean-cut guy still playing arenas is the same Trent Reznor. As the brain behind industrial rock giants Nine Inch Nails, Reznor brought a harrowing punk edge to electronic music, bridging the yawning gap between synth pop and hard rock. Reznor released NIN’s first album, 1989’s “Pretty Hate Machine,” when he was 24, and the record quickly became an underground hit.