Spokane's Award Winning Civic Theatre, behind the stage!

The earliest recorded theatrical event dates back to 2000 BC with the passion plays of Ancient Egypt while almost as early, theatre was taking place in other locations around the world such as India. As with visual art, the history and evolution of theatre art moves through medieval Europe, the era of the Renaissance and at present where multi million dollar touring productions dazzle audiences all over the planet. People of all ages and backgrounds still continue to be fascinated and captivated by sets, stages, scripts, singing, wild applauses, stunning performances and the like, despite the past centurie's advancements in electronic media and film's ability to deliver visual performances in ways that the theatre can not. At the same time nothing compares to the energy and the amazing experience one gets from being in a real performing arts theatre building, let alone being present to feel the power of live performance. Perhaps this is why millions of people continue to study, support, take part in, or in some way stay connected to the theatre. It's why Civic Theatre continues to flourish in many cities all over the globe. Take for example the award winning Spokane Civic Theatre and it's average 50,000 to 60,000 main-stage patrons per year! That's a lot of people for a city of around 200,000 in total population. In fact Spokane's Civic Theatre has been a profound part of the region's performing arts community going back to it's founding in 1947 and present location in 1967. It's actually one of the oldest community theatres in the country! Because it's so fun, and so important for our culture to support the arts, I wanted to blog about it and thanks to Allyson Shoshana who is the theatre's communications director, I was treated to an amazing tour of the theatre and some fun pictures to share...

(featured above) This is the second stage, and you are looking at the set of "The Cemetery Club" While I've only seen a play at the main stage, I'm told that the experience you get in the second theatre is so up and close that you almost feel that you are a part of the play itself...

More than 1,000 volunteers serve the theatre as actresses, actors, back stage crews, board members, ushers, ticketbox attendants and many, many more important positions...here's a couple working on costumes in the sewing shop part of the theatre...

and if you ever need the perfect costume you can select from more than 10,000 costumes at their rental shop...

At least a thousand items in there have to be the hats! Oh and then there's the shoes...unfortunately these aren't rented...

here's a dress Allyson was showing me that will be worn in the upcoming production of Irvin Berlin's White Christmas

This is the first of a series of blogs about this gem we have here in Spokane...log in frequently!