A happy face

The economy is slow, arts budgets are characteristically tight and one of Spokane’s live theaters, CenterStage, has already met its demise this summer. So why is optimism the prevailing mood as the 2008-2009 Spokane theater season gets underway?

For one thing, audiences and finances stabilized enough last season to provide some breathing room at most of Spokane’s surviving institutions. For another, audiences are already responding to an upcoming season with a number of high-name-recognition works, ranging from “Waiting for Godot” to “Phantom of the Opera” to “Oklahoma!” That translates into strong subscription sales.

And there’s another reason for optimism as well.

“Historically, when the economy does bad, theater does well,” offered Michael Weaver, founder and artistic director of the Actors Repertory Theatre (ARt).

In that case, everything – to borrow a famous Broadway line – should be coming up roses.

Here’s a look at the state of theater in Spokane, beginning with the state of the ARt:

• Actors Repertory Theatre: This professional theater, which leases Spokane Falls Community College’s Spartan Theatre, has already launched a powerful season with Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.” This play shows off this theater’s strengths: national-class acting and a respect for the deep literary traditions of theater.

The most-anticipated play is undoubtedly the second, “Doubt (A Parable),” the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by John Patrick Shanley. This play’s subject should resonate particularly strongly in our region: A priest is accused of molesting a boy.

Did he or didn’t he?

“What interests me is that the plot is not exactly what the play is all about,” said Weaver. “It’s a vehicle to talk about gossip and doubt and presumptions – which may or may not be true.”

The lead actor has just flown in from Berkeley; Weaver held auditions for the season in San Francisco and Portland, as well as locally.

The rest of the season includes Alan Ayckbourn’s British farce “Relatively Speaking”; “Swansong,” a new play about rivalry between Ben Jonson and Shakespeare; and the Southern beauty parlor crowd-pleaser, “Steel Magnolias.”

On the theater’s business end, Weaver admitted that losing managing director Raymond Ochs to a TV job in California a few weeks ago was “a blow.” The search is beginning for a replacement.

• Spokane Civic Theatre – Spokane’s longest-running community theater institution has turned a corner financially and executive artistic director Yvonne A.K. Johnson said she is breathing easier than in her previous three years at the helm.

What has made the difference? A popular season helped last year, along with plenty of attention paid to the Civic’s three core constituencies: audiences, participants and students (in the Civic’s popular theater academies).

The Civic is already seeing strong subscription sales for the new season, which plays to the theater’s strengths: musicals, and lots of them. The Civic will be doing five musicals, one more than usual, beginning with the warhorse that kicked off Broadway’s golden era, “Oklahoma!”

“The theater hasn’t done it for over 20 years, and I think the real grand chestnuts should be produced every 10 years,” said Johnson. “You have a whole generation that hasn’t seen it yet.”

Or auditioned for it. Doing shows that local actors want to audition for is important for the Civic as well. Community theater is a participant sport as well as a spectator sport.

The other musicals include “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “No, No, Nanette,” “Godspell” and a musical version of “A Christmas Carol.”

The new season includes some plays with name recognition, notably “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Another highlight: “The Women of Lockerbie,” about the aftermath of an air disaster.

“Theater mirrors society, and I think every show this season does that,” said Johnson.

Meanwhile, the Civic’s educational arm continues to grow. The theater hired a full-time director of education this year.

• Interplayers – After several difficult years, Interplayers board president Jim McCurdy said Spokane’s oldest professional theater will be in good shape to open its 28th season. For one thing, it has a professional staff in place.

After going all of last season without an artistic director, the board has hired Karen Kalensky, an L.A.-based actress and director, to be the theater’s consulting artistic director.

She has put together a seven-show season highlighted by works from some of the theater’s greatest playwrights, beginning with A.R. Gurney’s “The Dining Room” and followed by Athol Fugard’s “Exits and Entrances.”

However, the biggest name is undoubtedly Samuel Beckett and his most famous work, “Waiting for Godot.” This tragicomedy about hope (or its absence) will feature Maynard Villers and Reed McColm in the lead roles.

The season also includes the Northwest premiere of a family comedy written by McColm, “Together Again for the First Time.”

Interplayers will also venture into musicals with “Cowgirls,” a musical comedy about a classical trio hired by mistake as a country band.

Actress Ellen Crawford will return to do “The Belle of Amherst,” the acclaimed one-woman show about Emily Dickinson. Closing the season will be a stage adaptation of “The Graduate.”

Kalensky said that “in some ways, all of the plays we are doing are classics” – if you count classical music and adaptations of classic films.

Beyond this season, however, Interplayers’ future remains uncertain. Its building is still for sale after a year on the market, but so far no deal has been struck.

McCurdy said if Interplayers can’t find a buyer who will lease the space back to the theater, it will simply sell the building outright. In that case, Interplayers would have to rent a performance space, such as the Bing Crosby Theater.

A sale would allow Interplayers, in McCurdy’s words, to “pay all outstanding debts and start anew in a new space.”

• Best of Broadway – This is one of those extra-large seasons for West Coast Entertainment’s Best of Broadway series, if only because “Phantom of the Opera” is returning for a three-week run, Oct. 8-25.

That’s a week shorter than the 2000 visit of “Phantom,” but three times longer than the typical visit for an average touring show.

“Phantom” will play to a whopping 67,500 people if it sells out, which is a distinct possibility. Plenty of tickets still remain, however.

The subscription season includes some other big titles, notably “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” the massively popular 2005 Tony winner, along with “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” and “The Color Purple.”

There are also a number of add-on shows, including “Annie,” “Defending the Caveman” and the “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” a surprise Tony-winning musical about kids competing in a spelling contest.

Overall, it should be the best-attended Best of Broadway season in years.

Will that success extend to the local theater season, too? Just like those two characters in Beckett’s “Godot,” Spokane’s theater community can do nothing but wait.