Rock ’n’ roll’s draw modeled in Civic Theatre rarity

The Spokesman-Review 
Jim Kershner
September 26, 2010

The Spokane Civic Theatre’s “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story” isn’t merely about the rock ’n’ roll of the 1950s; it IS the rock ’n’ roll of the 1950s.

By that, I mean its appeal is exactly the same – it’s upbeat, energetic, youthful and just plain fun. I also mean that the show consists largely of rock ’n’ roll performed concert-style. And finally, I mean that if someone from Mars were curious about why rock ’n’ roll took over the Earth in the late 1950s, this show provides a pretty good answer.

In fact, it provides the answer in the first scene, when an unknown Lubbock, Texas, band called the Crickets, fronted by Buddy Holly, starts playing a country song. It’s slow, forlorn and plodding. In the middle of this weeper, Holly turns to his band mates with a mischievous grin and breaks into his own raucous, good-time song, “Ready Teddy.” It’s blazing fast, catchy and alive.

Which is not a bad description of the Civic’s production overall.

None of this would have worked without a charismatic and wholly successful performance by Brian Gunn as Buddy Holly. “Buddy” is a show that relies to an exceptionally high degree on one performer. That performer must be able to play a guitar, sing in a sweet, high voice (with some country and blues overtones), and create a quirky and charismatic character.

Gunn makes it all look easy. First, there’s the guitar-playing, which he learned in an intensive crash course with Spokane guitar master Joe Brasch. Gunn not only reproduces Holly’s chiming sound with reasonable accuracy, he makes it look effortless.

His voice is sweet and pure on songs like “Everyday.” And he easily pulls off Holly’s characteristic hiccups in songs such as “Peggy Sue.” He clearly has a good musical ear, which is hard to teach.

More importantly, he carries himself with a confidence and charisma absolutely essential to conveying Buddy’s story. Holly had a gawky, unusual appeal – all thick glasses and sly grins – and Gunn’s performance made me realize how Holly was able to become an object of rock adoration despite having none of the standard Elvis sex appeal.

Gunn has plenty of help, of course. The two other Crickets, played well by Dave Turner and James Elvidge, are amiable characters with good musical chops. Michael Hynes as Lubbock’s disc jockey Hipockets Duncan and Daniel Griffith as Holly’s indispensable producer Norman Petty contribute solid supporting performances.

Yet I would not go to “Buddy” expecting much in the way of riveting drama. Buddy’s life is portrayed in a series of predictable and often stiff scenes, which can be summed up in one quick sentence: Buddy overcame all doubters to become a beloved national sensation.

The one truly touching moment in the show is powerfully staged by director Yvonne A.K. Johnson. In the middle of Buddy’s final, fateful concert in Clear Lake, Iowa, in 1959, the music stops mid-song. The lights go black. In a niche above the audience, Hipockets Duncan sits alone in his radio studio, delivering an elegy to Buddy Holly, dead in a plane crash.

Then, after a pause, the lights flash back on and Buddy is singing again. The message: The music did not die that day.

This was staged far differently than it was in the national tour – but equally effectively.

This is, as Johnson has said, a different kind of show for the Civic. Staging it is more like staging a two-hour rock concert. The first half re-creates an Apollo Theater gig in Harlem, with great supporting performances by the excellent David Allen McElroy and Keyonna Knight.

The second half re-creates the Clear Lake concert, with spot-on impersonations of J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson by Jhon Goodwin, and of Ritchie Valens by Paul Villabrille.

This creates a whole new set of challenges in staging and technical direction. Johnson and technical director Peter Hardie pull it all off smoothly, although they might want to tinker with the sound levels and sound mixing on a few numbers.

Still, the message comes through loud and clear, summed up in Gunn’s final line: Buddy’s back in town.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/sep/26/rock-n-rolls-draw-modeled-in-civic-rarity/

Artistic director helps Civic Theatre thrive despite tough economy

The Spokesman-Review
Jim Kershner 
August 29,2010

The recession has been brutal for Spokane’s live theater. Two theaters closed, others teetered.

Meanwhile, the Spokane Civic Theatre has just come off its biggest ticket-sales season ever. How do you explain that?

Pirates of Penzance, 2009-2010 Season
Directed by Yvonne A.K. Johnson

The answer: Yvonne A.K. Johnson.

Johnson, 40, has been the Civic’s executive artistic director for five years – a period of remarkable turnaround.

Michael Muzatko, president of the Civic’s board, certainly gives her the credit.

“What Yvonne has, which is very rare, is that she is an excellent artistic director and a brilliant businesswoman,” said Muzatko. “We are very lucky.”

It’s hard to argue with the results. When Johnson arrived from Minneapolis in 2005, the theater was in turmoil and in desperate fiscal peril.

“The endowment board said, ‘You don’t have a lot of time. You have to get this theater turned around or we’ll have to close the doors,’ ” Johnson recalled.

The week she arrived, the Civic was staging a show playing to 33 percent of capacity. So Johnson went to work drafting a budget and scheduling shows that would get patrons into the seats.

“Now, if a show is under 70 percent, I have a heart attack,” she said.

Annie Get Your Gun, 2009-2010 Season
Directed by Yvonne A.K. Johnson

The theater is not only coming off its best ticket season, it also produced the best-selling individual show in its history, Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance,” last fall.

Johnson, not coincidentally, directed it. She turned what could have been a stuffy dud into a show that was a boatload of high-energy fun, with nods to Monty Python, Elvis and Queen Victoria.

“A lot of forward planning came into that,” she said.

Sometimes, budgets are balanced at the expense of quality. Johnson said she never wanted to go that route.

In fact, she came in convinced that high production values were crucial to restoring the faith of both the audiences and the performers. In a community theater, which does not pay actors, the enthusiastic participation of performers is crucial.

Listen to what one local performer and director has to say about Johnson: “I think she’s been a gift to the community. She has helped the Spokane Civic Theatre regain its standards as a glorious and reliable theater.

“I don’t think what she has done has been easy. But she’s done it and I admire her very much.”

And that’s from someone you might call a competitor: Reed McColm, the artistic director of Interplayers Professional Theatre.

Muzatko, who is also an actor and performer (he was the Pirate King in “Penzance”), said she has won the respect of the acting community.

“She runs a very efficient rehearsal and does not waste the performers’ time,” he said. “And she takes input very well and is also respectful of talent.”

Johnson has actually increased the Civic’s full-time staff by several positions. For the first time, the Civic will have a full-time music director.

How can a theater increase staff and still remain fiscally solvent?

By increasing revenues, which in the Civic’s case, are almost entirely dependent on ticket sales. Revenues have, essentially, doubled since she arrived.

She also built up the theater’s training camp and classes for youth, called the Academy. It now accounts for 10 percent of the theater’s budget – and it has another advantage as well.

“You start them early, and they might be actors, directors and theatergoers,” she said.

Johnson grew up in Waukesha, Wisc., a suburb of Milwaukee. She discovered her love of theater by sixth grade, when she dressed up as a cavewoman and sang a song in a school show.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from nearby Carthage College in speech, communications and theater, and spent a few years as a freelance director in the Milwaukee area.

Then she decided that England was the place to immerse herself more fully in theater. Johnson went to the University of Essex in Colchester and earned her first master’s degree, in contemporary theater practice. She directed shows in London and Edinburgh.

Johnson returned to the states and earned a master of fine arts at Minnesota State University-Mankato. After that, she was hired to run both the teaching company and the performance company at CLIMB Theatre, a large professional educational theater troupe near Minnesota.

There, she was mentored by an executive director who taught her about budgets, audits and balance sheets – things they don’t teach in MFA programs.

From there, she applied for the Civic post, where that financial training came in handy.

“Yes, I am comfortable with the business side (as well as with the artistic side),” said Johnson. “I feel blessed to have both. But I certainly prefer the artistic.”

Sometimes, her artistic instincts have been crucial to business success.

For instance, last year she chose a show that few in the Northwest were familiar with: a raucous farce by Jeff Daniels, “Escanaba in Da Moonlight,” set in a Michigan hunting camp. It included a seven-minute flatulence gag.

“A lot of people said, ‘This is not going to go over. Spokane will hate this show,’ ” said Johnson. “I said, ‘I totally disagree. Spokane will love it.’

“Troy Nickerson is a great director of farce and I knew if we got the right people in it, they would have fun. And we sold out almost every show.”

Johnson said she was lucky to arrive at a place with such a talented core. She said Nickerson has “been here every step of the way,” and she has appointed him resident director.

She also gives credit to the Civic’s professional design team: Peter Hardie, David Baker, Dee Finan and Jan Wanless. Johnson said she is also grateful for the support of the board.

It hasn’t always been easy. She arrived at the Civic in the wake of staff layoffs. Emotions were running high. On top of that, the theater had a fire and a flood in the boiler room during her first year.

“Peter Hardie would say, ‘Well, you came back again today!’ ” remembered Johnson.

With all of her family back in Wisconsin, she admitted that it got a little lonely in those days. Even now, being the person who is, in her words, “responsible for every dollar and every word at the theater” can be difficult.

“I jokingly say to her, ‘Is the crown a little heavy today?’ ” said Muzatko, paraphrasing Shakespeare.

Johnson doesn’t have much time for hobbies, although she loves travel, water-skiing, wine-tasting with friends and a daily walk through Manito Park, near her home. But she’s doing what she loves – and doing it well.

Will she stick around?

“I’m planning on being here,” she said. “There’s still work to be done.”

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/aug/29/civic-minded-leader/

Theatre Review: ‘Annie’ characters shine again at Civic

The Spokesman-Review Tracy Poindexter-Canton May 23, 2012

After a 28-year hiatus from the Spokane Civic Theatre stage, “Annie” returns with a glorious bang.

 Directed by Yvonne A.K. Johnson, the show exudes the uplifting and heartfelt spirit of Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin and Thomas Meehan’s 1977 Broadway hit – a quintessential rags-to-riches story based on Harold Gray’s “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip about the adventures of a redheaded orphan girl and her dog, Sandy, set during the Great Depression.

Accolades for the original Broadway material include: several Tony Awards, including Best Musical; John Huston’s 1982 Academy Award-nominated movie adaption; an Emmy-winning 1999 made-for-television movie; numerous national and international touring productions; and three Broadway revivals, including a 35th anniversary production set to open this fall.

As the 10-piece orchestra, under the musical direction of Benjamin Bentler, victoriously conveys Strouse’s Vaudeville-like swing and jazz score, the more-than-30-person cast delivers Charnin’s iconic lyrics and Michael Muzatko’s appealing choreography with fervor.

The show’s design team, led by Peter Hardie (set) and Jan Wanless (costumes) meticulously re-creates the show’s backdrop of 1930s New York City – from the orphans’ tattered pinafores and rickety bunk beds at the gloomy Municipal Girl Orphanage to the Big Apple’s twinkling skyline, high society finery and opulence of the Warbucks mansion.

Starring in a young actress’ dream role, Sophia Caruso is clearly – in showbiz terms – a triple threat. Though 10-year-old Caruso’s approach to the role is vulnerable, soft-spoken and a lot less rough-and-tumble than some of her Annie predecessors – e.g., Aileen Quinn’s portrayal in the 1982 film version – she is just as effective. Her belting of the show’s signature ballad, “Tomorrow,” seems second nature. One simply cannot resist her charm as she warms the heart of detached billionaire Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks (Mark Pleasant). She also relates well with frisky sidekick and SpokAnimal rescue dog Sandy, even when he seems to care less about the audience and more about the treats in her pocket.

Pleasant is convincing as the successful yet lonely Warbucks, even though he doesn’t display the character’s traditional amount of gruffness nor bald cap and white dinner jacket. Vocally, he delivers a smooth and moving rendition of “Something Was Missing.” Pleasant and Caruso’s interactions are sincere, and they make a fine tap-dancing duo in “I Don’t Need Anything But You.”

In a role made famous by such greats as Carol Burnett, Kathy Bates, Sally Struthers and Nell Carter, Phedre Burney-Quimby gives a less abrasive yet fitting portrayal of the cruel orphanage supervisor, Miss Hannigan. Burney-Quimby who played the role of Annie in the Civic’s last production 28 years ago, is complemented by Muzatko, who also plays the role of Miss Hannigan’s con-man brother, Rooster, and his attractive dame, Lily (Angela Pierson).

Andrea Dawson is poised as Warbucks’ personal secretary, Grace Farrell. With Marlene Dietrich-like looks and glamour, the soprano’s vocals chime like porcelain bells.

The 10 orphans deliver much of the show’s playfulness. Among them are spunky Molly (Marlena Mizzoni); worrisome Duffy (Autumn Plucker); and bully Pepper (Kiersten Gasper).

Other highlights include: Annie and the orphans’ “Hard Knock Life” percussion routine using tin buckets, scrub brushes and mops; Mark Sims as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his cabinet’s hopeful “Tomorrow” reprise; tap dancing by radio announcer Bert Healy (Adam Peterson); and a brief yet memorable solo by Morgan Keene as a star-to-be in the ensemble number “N.Y.C.”

Closing the theater’s impressive 65th anniversary season on a particularly high note, this first-rate Civic production is one you will not want to miss.

Theater review: ‘Normal’ looks at tough subject with grit, songs

Nathan Weinbender
The Spokesman-Review, February 3, 2013

“Next to Normal” comes to the Civic Theatre with quite a pedigree: The drama by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey won three Tony Awards during its original 2009 Broadway run, including one for best actress and one for best score, as well as the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for drama, a distinction only eight other musicals can match (most recently “Rent” in 1996).

 It’s a tricky number to pull off, a mostly sung-through rock musical about mental illness. Much like its central protagonist, “Normal” careens from one emotional peak to another, from gallows humor to teenage romance to suburban tragedy, sometimes within the same scene.

A single wrong step could be devastating to the integrity of the story and the legitimacy of the characters. But this Civic production, directed by Yvonne A.K. Johnson, does justice to the material; the music maintains its original power, the staging is dynamic and the performances are compelling.

The story concerns the Goodman family, who maintain a veneer of domesticity despite the fact that wife and mother Diana (Heidi Santiago) has suffered from bipolar disorder for 16 years. Her husband, Dan (Mark Pleasant), practically ignores his wife’s unpredictable behavior, while her overachieving teen daughter, Natalie (Morgan Keene), is mortified by it.

Other than her frequent visits to an overzealous pharmacologist (Charles Fletcher) – “He knows my deepest secrets; I know his name” – the person Diana is closest with is her son, Gabe (Robby French). Unfortunately, Gabe’s merely a figment of her fractured imagination, the real Gabe having died in infancy. As Diana’s sanity wanes, Gabe’s apparition becomes increasingly insistent that he is, in fact, alive.

The push-and-pull between husband and son becomes the primary conflict of “Next to Normal,” as Diana has to consider who really has her best interests in mind. Is it Dan, who wants her to undergo electroshock treatments, or Gabe, who is convinced that emptying her pill bottles into the trash is the best solution? She has them on each of her shoulders, though we’re not sure who is the angel and who is the devil.

Meanwhile, Natalie’s burgeoning relationship with an outcast named Henry (Mitch Heid) is on the fringes of the story, as is her experimentation with the same prescription drugs that have numbed her mother.

In the role originated by Alice Ripley, Santiago is particularly memorable as Diana, a role that requires tremendous range, wildly unhinged and deeply vulnerable.

After a round of electroconvulsive therapy that practically wipes her memory (she initially doesn’t recognize her daughter), Diana begins to piece together her past. Despite Dan’s best efforts to hide Gabe’s existence from her, she begins to remember him. The moment when they finally confront and cope with his death is a powerful one.

The real discovery in the cast, though, is Keene as Natalie. At 15, she has the dramatic and vocal range of an actress twice her age and experience. Santiago and Keene share one of the show’s most effective moments, as Diana finally confides in Natalie and repents her mistakes as a parent. It’s one of the quietest scenes in the show, highlighting the intimacy and credibility of the performances.

 “Next to Normal” is not always pleasant. But the cast rises to the challenge of the difficult topic, complicated musical arrangements and tricky vocal harmonies of Kitt and Yorkey’s score.

The Goodman family story doesn’t end on the most uplifting of notes, nor are all its loose ends tied up. But “Next to Normal” does leave us with a glimmer of optimism. And sometimes, as in real life, that’s the most we can hope for.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/feb/03/review-normal-looks-at-tough-subject-with-grit/

Theater review: Ex-sailor in ‘Count’ has vengeful new identity

Tracy Poindexter
The Spokesman-Review
February 26, 2012

Based on the literary masterpiece, “The Count of Monte Cristo” spins the ultimate tale of treachery, romance, adventure and revenge.

 Yvonne A.K. Johnson effectively directs the Spokane Civic Theatre’s production of Alexandre Dumas’ mid-19th-century adventure novel, adapted to the stage by Charles Morey. Set mostly in France following the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire, the story focuses on Edmond Dantes, a merchant sailor who is falsely imprisoned, manages to escape from jail, retrieves a fortune of buried treasure, and devises a grand scheme of revenge on the men who conspired against him.

As Dantes, Paul Villabrille masterfully conveys the protagonist’s radical shift of character. He exudes innocence and naivete while locked away in the Chateau d’If prison with Abbe Farria, the wise and fatherlike “mad priest” (deftly portrayed by Peter Hardie), and radiates vengeance, detachment and cynicism while smirking and schmoozing with the upper echelons of French society as the wealthy and extravagant count of Monte Cristo.

Through the use of charming wordplay, he provides comic relief to the play’s mostly solemn script throughout the second act. Uproarious laughter greeted him during Friday night’s performance of the Bedroom of Valentine de Villefort scene as he prescribed fake poison to de Villefort’s teenage daughter, Valentine (Frances Charles), in order to reunite her with her forbidden true love, Maximillian Morel (Dexter Caukins). When Valentine informs the count of her unfamiliarity with the story of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” he humorously assures her that “this will end better.”

Striking performances by other cast members include: Nancy Gasper as Dantes’ timid fiancée, Mercedes; Dalin Tipton as Fernand Mondego, Dante’s jealous-hearted, villainous rival; Damon Mentzer as the greedy and ruthless Eugene Danglars; and Chris Taylor as the corrupt deputy crown prosecutor, Gerard de Villefort.

Other highlights include: thrilling sword duels choreographed by Bryan Durbin; costumes by Jan Wanless accurately depicting the post-French Revolution period’s more informal, less aristocratic fashions; and attractive set and lighting design by David Baker.

While the show diverges somewhat from the original plot, it remains true to the central themes of Dumas’ epic novel – justice, revenge, mercy, hope, forgiveness and divine power – and sticks more to the original story than its most recent movie adaptation, directed by Kevin Reynolds in 2002.

Though tough to follow at times, especially for those with little background knowledge of the story and its characters, top-rate delivery of the timeless material by the Civic’s cast and crew manage to keep the audience intrigued.

Theater review: Cast succeeds in pooling talent

Jim Kershner
The Spokesman-Review
March 27,2011

The main character of “Metamorphoses” is 24 feet wide, 4 feet deep and smells sweetly of chlorine.

It’s a swimming pool, which gurgles center stage in the intimate Firth Chew Studio Theatre space.

And it’s only one of the many reasons why “Metamorphoses” is such a memorable full-immersion theatrical experience. It helps that Mary Zimmerman’s script, based on the Roman poet Ovid’s poems, tells tales that have captured the human experience for thousands of years – the tales of King Midas, Narcissus and Orpheus, to name a few.

And it also helps that director Yvonne A.K. Johnson uses the pool not as a gimmick, but as a metaphor. Sometimes it’s the River Styx, sometimes the stormy Mediterranean, sometimes the glistening well of human desire. She and her 10-person ensemble also use the pool as an all-purpose staging tool and a rich source for new kinds of body language.

Where else can characters express their feelings by kicking water in each other’s faces? Forcing someone’s head underwater? Or, in one extreme case, diving to the bottom and staying there? (Scuba gear makes that particular effect possible.)

Zimmerman’s sometimes funny, often moving script is divided into 10 vignettes, each one dealing with the ways in which mythical gods and goddesses alternately meddle with the lives of mortals and screw up their own private lives.

One of the most powerful is the story of Alcyone, who mourns her husband Ceyx, missing at sea, and ultimately reunites with him by transforming into a seabird. The final, powerful image has them swooping together, through the waves. Transformation is the theme of all of these pieces, as befits a work titled “Metamorphoses.”

The story of Phaeton, the son of Apollo (you might say the son of the Sun), is staged in a more lighthearted manner. Phaeton rocks a pair of Ray-Bans and acts like a spoiled SoCal teenager, who just wants the old man to hand over the car keys. But this car is the golden chariot of the Sun, and Phaeton, unfortunately, commits some reckless charioteering.

The most moving vignette comes at the end, when the kindly old couple, Baucis and Philemon, ask Zeus to grant them a remarkable wish. They want to die at the same time, so neither has to endure the grief of losing the other. Zeus does them one better. He turns them into trees so they can be entwined forever. My face was wet at the end of this scene, and not from the splashage.

The mostly young and seaworthy ensemble – Marilee Bailey, Nancy Gasper, Bethany Hart, Morgan Gilbert, Rosie Mandel, Dalin Tipton, Kevin Connell, Taylor Pedroza, Brian Gunn and Gabriel T. Short – all play multiple roles. I have great admiration for their ability to embody such otherworldly characters as Aphrodite, Orpheus and the half-naked Eros, all while, literally, staying afloat.

This is one play in which the costumers and set designers star. All of the actors wear basic bathing suits, but they often cover these with, for instance, a shimmering Greek gown, or a toga, or even a contemporary men’s suit. Lead costumer Jan Wanless made 80 costumes – many of which end up soaking wet at the end of every show.

And set designer Peter Hardie successfully turns a huge swimming pool – donated by Pool World – into a genuine stage. The entire pool is surrounded by decking, with an elaborate doorway leading offstage.

So some scenes take place on dry land. Yet because the pool is integrated so well into the space, it seems perfectly natural when a god or goddess turns, leaps and dives gracefully into another realm.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/mar/27/theater-review-cast-succeeds-in-pooling-talent/

Truth Be Told: Spokane Civic Theatre Update

On August 1, 2014 - In Superior Court of the State of Washington in and out for the County of Spokane “Order DENYING Defendant Spokane Civic Theatre’s motion for Partial Summary Judgment RE At-Will Employment and Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing.” Case No. 13-2-02907-8

I will be posting a status update with direct quotations from the defendants in the near future that I believe will shed some light to those that have been following this story. My hope is to keep this piece under 1,000 words so those of you who are interested will read it and/or share it. Thank you friends and family for your ongoing love and support these past 14 months. I could not have gone through all of this without you.