Civic fills void with new artistic director
The Spokane Civic Theatre has hired a new artistic director, Yvonne A.K. Johnson, a Minnesota director with extensive experience in both the U.S. and the U.K. She’ll arrive at the Civic in mid-January.
“I think Yvonne is a perfect match for us,” said Bryan Harnetiaux, the Civic’s resident playwright and chair of the Civic’s search committee. “She has excellent theater credentials and I have every reason to think she will be a great leader and collaborator.”
From 1996 to 2001, Johnson served as the artistic director of London’s Kassiopia Theatre Company, which specialized in works of Irish theater. Her production of Irish playwright Brian Friel’s “Lovers – Winners” was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.
For the past few years, she has been living and working in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area where she is co-owner and producing director of JTR Productions, which has produced “Jack the Ripper – A Musical Mystery” and “Life 101: The Musical.”
From 2001-2003, she was producer and company director of CLIMB Theatre in St. Paul.
Johnson is a native of Milwaukee and she holds a bachelor’s degree from Carthage College in Wisconsin, a master’s degree in contemporary theater practice from the University of Essex in Colchester, England, and a master of fine arts degree from Minnesota State University.
The Civic has been without a permanent artistic director since May, when longtime theater head Jack Phillips was dismissed by the Civic’s board. About 90 people from all over the country applied for the job, and four were brought in for on-site interviews, said Charlotte Boutz, interim director of operations and management.
First Night buttons
First Night Spokane buttons are now on sale. I’m not a qualified financial adviser, but here’s my advice anyway: Buying one early would be a sound economic decision.
Buttons are $10 in advance, but if you fool around and wait until New Year’s Eve, they’ll run you $12.
Buy your buttons in advance at any Tidyman’s Supermarket; any Zip Trip store; any Tomlinson-Black Real Estate office; River Park Square (concierge desk, Miaz or Color Me Mine); Auntie’s Bookstore; City Perk; Moose Lake; Thomas Hammer downtown; the Spokane Symphony office; the Spokane Downtown Library; Uncle’s Games in the Valley Mall; or online through TicketsWest, www.ticketswest.com.
The button will serve as your admission ticket to dozens of events downtown on New Year’s Eve.
If you want to make a real night of it, check out the First Night hotel packages at www.firstnightspokane.org.
A Duran Duran date
Duran Duran, that ‘80s guilty pleasure, has booked a March 5 date at the Spokane Opera House.
The boys from Birmingham (England) have been back in action since a successful 2003 reunion tour.
Tickets run $39.50 and $49.50, on sale Friday at 10 a.m. through TicketsWest outlets (325-SEAT, 800-325-SEAT, www.ticketswest.com).
KQNT-AM to switch to Fox news
Clear Channel, the radio conglomerate, announced on Monday that it has signed a deal with Fox News to be the news provider for 100 of Clear Channel’s news-talk stations around the country.
One of those stations will be KQNT-AM (590), which has been using CNN news. Look for the changeover to Fox sometime after June 1, after they get out of their contract with CNN.
The Bulldogs and KGA-AM
Looks like KGA-AM will be the Gonzaga University sports station for a long time.
Gonzaga University extended its contract for five more years with Brett Sports & Entertainment and Citadel Communications. This means that Citadel’s KGA-AM will be carrying Gonzaga basketball (and other sports) through the 2008-2009 season.
Dan Mitchinson, KGA-AM program director, said that Gonzaga sports is “a very important cog in our programming efforts.”
KGA-AM will also continue to air the “Mark Few Coach’s Show” at 7 p.m. on most Tuesday nights, including this Tuesday.
A local Christmas CD
If you are a fan of choral music, here’s a local holiday CD you should know about: “An Inland Northwest Christmas,” featuring the Springbrook Singers singing the entire collection of Alfred Burt Carols.
Alfred Burt was a Michigan musician who published a series of acclaimed carols in the middle of the last century. Local singer Lee Coppess of Hayden Lake became a fan of those carols. When he could not find a recording of Burt’s complete works, he got a group of his fellow Spokane Symphony Chorale members to record them under the name of the Springbrook Singers in 1998.
The carols combine religious and secular holiday themes.
The CD is available at all Hastings stores in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, at the Long Ear in Coeur d’Alene, and directly from Polyhymnia Productions Inc., 7098 E. Hayden Haven, Hayden ID, 83835. It is also available through Amazon.com.