On Saturday, November 12, Walla Walla’s indie rock lovers stormed into Main Street Studios. They had come to see a three-and-a-half hour concert headlined by the 90’s Idaho band Built to Spill, in their first major tour since the release of their 2015 album “Untethered Moon.”

In addition to Built to Spill, the concert featured performances from the Portland indie group Genders and fellow Idaho group Toy Zoo.

Photo by Henry Honzel

Originally formed in 1992, the band’s concert lineup consisted of vocalist and guitarist Doug Martsch, drummer Steve Gere and bassist Jason Albertini. The trio played for roughly one and a half hours, much to the jubilation of the adoring fans in the crowd, who eagerly cheered the group back to the stage for an encore and were still eager for more when the group definitively left the stage.

Main Street Studios proved to be a fitting stage for the group and their opening acts. Compact without being cramped, the venue has an aesthetic befitting the indie scene. The bands must go through the crowd to reach the stage, and the setup and takedown process is completed by the groups themselves with limited assistance, and the opening acts had to contend with Built to Spill’s equipment on one side of the stage as they set up for themselves.

Overall, the setting was very minimalist, with no notable lighting elements or stage design. Just the bands and their music. For those unfamiliar with the indie rock scene, it can be described as the logical medium between a coffeehouse performance and larger-scale arena rock.

In terms of volume, the groups, while not deafening, could hardly be considered quiet, performing with an intensity enough to leave a ringing in the ears for a remainder of the night. But while the volume was generally consistent among the three bands, sound quality was not – Built to Spill boasted a smoother, cleaner sound overall, while Genders and Toy Zoo were often muddled, and their lyrics were often indecipherable.

The biggest issue with the concert was its sheer length. Genders took the stage at 8:50 p.m. and played for around 40 minutes; Toy Zoo began at 9:45 p.m. and played for the same amount of time. Built to Spill – which was the only act that had even been advertised – did not begin performing until 10:45 p.m., and did not finish until after 12:15 a.m. on Sunday, November 13. Hardly a problem for the excited, alcohol-infused crowds that dominated the setting, but rather daunting for a sober first-time listener.

Photo by Henry Honzel

Fortunately, all of the bands gave strong performances. Genders – a group that rocks the stereotypical indie band image without shame – has an appealing sound that ranges from soft and relaxed (“Life is But a Dream”) to hard and driving (“Never Belonged to You”). Toy Zoo, which features two bassists (Cory Hentrup and Chessa Lilly), has a powerful hard rock edge, as visible on songs like “Zissou” and “Gravy.” The two groups are relative newcomers, with their most recent releases being Genders’ EP “Phone Home” and Toy Zoo’s self-titled album.

Built to Spill provided a softer contrast to its opening acts. Inspired by the likes of Dinosaur, Jr. and Neil Young, Built to Spill has maintained a remarkable consistency over years of albums. While indie rock fans will surely get a kick out of their material, fans of classic rock will also find much to enjoy from the group’s work. “Some Other Song” conjures up memories of Rush’s “Working Man,” and the group also gave a performance of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Effigy.”

Overall, Built to Spill at Main Street Studios was a solid experience. It could have benefited from better sound and a shorter length, but the bands were appealing, and their music is good enough to make a casual observer interested in checking them out further.

“Here, There & Everywhere:” A film celebrating all things snowsport-related. 7:00 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 10. Cordiner Hall. Tickets 10 dollars presale, 15 dollars at the door.

Fall Jazz Ensemble Concert: Directed by Doug Scarborough and Gary Gemberling. 7:00p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 10. Chism Hall. Free and open to the public.

“Antigonick:” Anne Carson’s radical translation of the Sophocles play “Antigone,” presented by the Whitman Department of Theatre. 8:00 p.m., Thursday-Sunday, Nov. 10 to 13 (matinee performance at 2:00 p.m on Sunday, Nov. 13). Alexander Stage, Harper Joy Theatre. Tickets free for Whitman students.

“Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier:” A 1992 documentary presented by IPECC, shedding light on the highly problematic judicial proceedings and conviction of indigenous man Leonard Peltier. 7:00 p.m., Friday, Nov. 11. Kimball Theatre.

“Noises Off:” The Michael Frayn farce, as performed by the local actors of the Little Theatre. 7:30 p.m, Friday to Sunday, November 11 to 13 (matinee performance 2:00 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 13). Little Theatre of Walla Walla. Tickets 15 dollars.

Built to Spill: The indie rock group comes to Main Street Studios for one night only. Doors open 8:00 p.m, show begins 9:00 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 12. Main Street Studios. Tickets 20 dollars advance, 22 dollars day of show.

Danita Ryan: Presented by IPECC and WEB Cultural Events, Danita Ryan speaks on gratitude, healing, and ceremony from a Navajo perspective. 7:00p.m. to 8:00 p.m., Monday, Nov. 14. Kimball Theatre.

The Michael Frayn-penned farce, “Noises Off” will commence a new season of theatrical productions for the Little Theatre of Walla Walla, and it looks to start the season off with a bang.

The play premieres Friday, Nov. 4, with another show on Nov. 5. The play will then run Friday-Sunday on the following two weekends, including additional matinee shows on both Saturday dates.

The play, directed by Cheryl Sutlick and Robert G. Randall (the latter of whom also works at the Whitman College Bookstore), features a cast of nine, six of whom play two different parts. The reason for the part-sharing is simple; the comedy features two separate storylines, one being the play-within-a-play, and the other being said play’s “backstage,” where the cast portrays the production’s “real” actors and actresses.

This is the first farce Sutlick and Randall have directed, though the pair have previously worked on musicals, comedies and mysteries, among others. “Noises Off” has been a unique experience for the pair.

“[The play] is a huge lesson for me in patience,” Sutlick said. “I’m very obsessive, and everything has to go perfect–but it’s not going perfect, that’s the nature of the show.”

Sutlick had not been involved with any prior production of “Noises Off.” Randall had previously acted in a Little Theatre production twenty years ago, an experience he recalls being far less taxing than his current endeavors.

“It’s one of my very all time favorite plays, but its much more fun to be on that [front] side of the stage,” Randall said.

The prospect of portraying both frontstage and backstage of a fictional play, while said play is in progress, has resulted in numerous technical challenges. While larger theaters often have rotating stages, allowing plays like “Noises Off” to easily shift between two different settings, the Little Theatre has no such luxury. Thus, between each act of the play, a team of eight must deconstruct the entire set and assemble another in a period of ten minutes, transforming the setting completely from the play-within-a-play to the backstage.

For about twenty minutes of Act Two, all action in the play occurs through pantomime; blocking this section took, by Sutlick and Randall’s standards, an exceptional period of time.

“It’s like we’re choreographing a dance,” Sutlick said. “We’d spend two hours doing five minutes of the show.”

Despite the challenges, the rehearsals seem to have been rather enjoyable. Kathryn Bogley ‘15, who plays Brooke Ashton and Vicki in the play, spoke fondly of the two directors.

“I haven’t worked with teams of directors very often, but there’s so much to keep track of, I think they really appreciate each other,” Kathryn said.

Bogley currently works as an Admissions Officer for Whitman and is performing her roles for the second time after previously performing in a production at the college. She is also acting alongside her mother Shauna Bogley ‘83, who is not only also a Whitman alumna, but has also been in a prior production of “Noises Off” nearly 30 years ago.

“I think we just kind of treat each other as companion actors instead of mother and daughter,” Shauna said. “It’s fun because we can…help each other run lines and things, and since we’ve both been in the show before we know what the other one needs for…practicing.”

While both actresses have performed in prior Little Theatre productions, this is the first time the two have shared the stage, though they have performed together in musicals at the Fort Walla Walla Amphitheater.

As for “Noises Off,” both actresses were eager to revisit the play, and both found a lot of enjoyment doing so.

“I like the fast pace of this show,” Shauna said. “It’s a challenge–and so I love that challenge–and comedy is always challenging.”

The two directors are eager for visitors to see the new production.

“If anything could ever go wrong in a show, you’re gonna see it in this show,” Sutlick said. “There’s jealousy, anger, anything you could think of, manipulation, everything…Act Two is the ultimate chaos you could ever see.”

“In this day and age…laughter is the greatest thing you can possibly have,” Randall said, “and this show is non-stop.”

The opening night gala for “Noises Off” will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 4, with the play premiering at 7:30 p.m.

According to the hosts of “A Changing Tide: The Presidency, Past and Present (A Philosophical Investigation),” senior economics and psychology major Trevor Press and senior philosophy major Zach Turner, the long title of their show is no accident.

“We pride ourselves on our long titles,” Press said. “We want a descriptive title so that every time, people know what they’re getting into.”

With a different show every semester, Press and Turner have delved into a myriad of different subjects, including creation myths, fairy tales and the American Dream. This semester, the “Changing Tide” hosts are tackling the subject of the U.S. presidential election, from the very beginning to the present day.

“People were saying this [current election] is the worst election ever, and I was curious,” Turner said. “What if [it] wasn’t?”

“It’s…important to recognize that the current election is the way it is because of all the previous elections, and what’s happened in those previous elections,” Press said. “So you can’t really say that previous elections don’t have anything to do with the current election, [and] there’s still a lot to be learned in terms of what that process is like now.”

“A Changing Tide” covers each of the presidential elections chronologically, progressing toward the current election in a nonpartisan fashion. Over the course of doing the show, Turner and Press discovered interesting facts in doing research for their show.

“[John C. Calhoun] was the vice presidential running mate of both the top two candidates [in 1824],” Press said. “[John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson] both chose him as their vice presidential nominee, and so [Calhoun] was kinda, like, hedging his bets so he said yes to both of them. And so of course he became…Vice President, and then, after that [in 1828], he ditched [Adams] for [Jackson].”

“I just kinda like to imagine that being like [Joe] Biden walking around the White House wearing like a [Mitt] Romney hat or something,” Press said. “That’d be so awkward.”

While the show is largely historical, the duo take time to address poignant comparisons between the past and the present.

“[W]hen there is a good…statement to be made about the current election, we make that statement,” Turner said.

Turner and Press noted that the “Changing Tide” in their title references the rough history of presidential elections.

“It’s not a smooth tide,” Press said. “It’s like whitecaps.”

The hosts also emphasized their show’s humor, with a lighthearted approach to their subject.

“When it’s early, and you’re tired, it’s a little bit funny because you’re a little bit on edge anyways,” Press said. “Every once in a while you might giggle…because you’re a little bit cuckoo like we are.”

“It’s not so funny that you’re not gonna be able to like, fall back asleep if you wanted to, but if you didn’t…it’s funny enough that you’ll…stay awake,” Turner added.

Both hosts described learning about the elections as one of the more fun aspects of the show.

“I really enjoy the…learning for each episode,” Turner said. “What’s fun for me is trying to make that learning…accessible, and also make it…interesting slash a little bit funny.”

The hosts acknowledged that, after they complete their study of elections this semester, they hope to tackle topics relating to the future in their next show, their final as Whitman students.

“A Changing Tide: The Presidency, Past and Present (A Philosophical Investigation)” airs from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. every Friday.

The heat was on this past Sept. 29, when the denizens of the Writing Interest House invited Whitman students to attend their Haiku Death Match. Visitors and residents alike were challenged to craft a sharp, witty haiku in 60 seconds, based on prompts that could vary from “flashlights” to “hickeys” and anything in between.

Competitors, upon entering, found themselves placed into brackets where they each faced off against a competitor who wrote on the same topic. After a vote taken from the others in the room, the winners advanced to the next bracket and the ultimate victors walked away with small prizes and acknowledgment of their mad haiku skills.

Chris Meabe, the Resident Assistant of the Writing House said, “Haiku Death Match is a lot of fun and I think it’s [a program] that people enjoy.”

Each month, the House comes up with a short, informal program for students around campus to participate in, which involve snacks, building community and most importantly, writing. “Haiku Death Match” follows in the footsteps of events like “Limerick Highlander” and “Alice in Wonderland Croquet,” among others.

“Most of our programs … aren’t traditions,” Meabe said. “It’s what the particular people in the house are interested in doing at that time.” He added that “interests can vary pretty widely, just within a semester.”

Haikus in particular, are well-liked within the Writing House as resident Eloise Coutret noted.

“I like haikus mainly because they’re so easy,” Coutret said. “[T]he five-seven-five syllable pattern is like just really easy to work with. It’s light-hearted and fun.”

That light-heartedness was clearly apparent throughout the competition itself. The haikus were written with neither the space nor time for professionalism, skewed on the silly side, with the verses containing flashlights blinding people’s faces, a myriad of different pratfalls and liberal use of amusing profanities. The result was a spirit of good fun and merriment.

Colleen Boken, one of the event’s attendees, was pleased with how the Death Match played out.

“I thought it was well organized, [and] a good group,” Boken said. “Everyone was pretty relaxed, it was just supposed to be fun and it was.”

Boken also noted that they would “of course” be willing to attend another Writing House event.

“I’ll make time for events like this, cause I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, that’s fun!’” Boken said.

Coutret was also satisfied with the Death Match, noting that events like it help raise awareness of the House itself, which is located somewhat far away from other houses in the Interest House Community and from campus itself.

“[H]aving people come out and get to know us and the house, and us being able to get to know them, and […] write some hella haikus … I think that’s really great,” Coutret said.

Meabe agreed with the sentiment of building community with the rest of campus. He also observed that the competition in events like the Death Match helps encourage students to step out of their comfort zones, challenging them in both honing their writing skills and handling different kinds of subject matter–even if the writing and subjects can be rather silly. The most fun aspect of the Death Match for him, though, was simply the event itself.

“We wouldn’t put a program on if we didn’t think we’d have a good time,” Meabe said. “So […] with the Haiku Death Match, just the process of doing it was a lot of fun.”

For those interested in checking out the Writing House in the short term, the House hosts Poetry Club from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. every Tuesday. In the meantime, the Writing House will soon begin crafting their program for October, one that will surely be as dynamic and stimulating as the Haiku Death Match.

For the ninth year since its inception, the Instant Play Festival kicked off the 2016-2017 Whitman theatrical season in style, with students showcasing their hastily constructed and quality-made short plays on Harper Joy Theater’s Alexander Stage.

The plays ranged significantly. Dramatic, introspective works like “The Cellardoor Leads Undersea” and “Limbo,” were mixed with farcical comedies like “The Spring Fling” and “Family Secrets,” and comedy-dramas like “God Will See You Now” and “Josie’s” served as a tonal middle ground.

In total, twelve plays were performed over the course of two nights, with six on Saturday the 24th and another six on Sunday the 25th. Each had been conceived, written, cast, rehearsed and gone through the processes of set and lighting design in a period of less than twenty-four hours prior to their performance, crafted entirely by Whitman College students and faculty.

Whitman dance professor Renee Archibald produced the festival, her first time in the position.

“It’s a rotating position through the department [of Theatre and Dance],” Archibald said. “Each year, someone else takes it on, so it has different points of view and has a different driving force.”

This year there were twelve student playwrights who had attended workshops with visiting playwrights Aimee Suzara, Greg Moss and Scot Augustson. Each night preceding the festival, one half of the student writers received a prompt that influenced their script. This year, examples included a requirement that there must be a character eating and a requirement that one character must dance when they think no one is watching.

Photo by Caroline Ashford Arya

These prompts serve to “give the playwrights a puzzle to put together,” Archibald said.

After receiving the prompt, the playwrights write for twelve hours overnight, generally without sleeping, before turning the play in at 7:30 a.m. From there, Archibald read the plays and assigned a director to each; the directors then go on to work with the actors until nearly 7 p.m.

“Really, everything happens within twenty-four hours for those playwrights, actors and directors,” Archibald said. “So everyone is seeing the new stuff at the same time.”

As the producer, Archibald’s position was largely administrative, helping to put the disparate elements of the production together, while the visiting playwrights handle the bulk of the work of instructing student writers.

One of the student playwrights, senior Maria Kajercline, observed that a lot of the work they conducted with the professionals was to prepare them for the pressure of writing a ten-minute play overnight.

“[The visiting playwrights] give us a prompt, and then we’ll have thirty minutes to write something,” Kajercline said. “Sure, it’s not the whole ten-minute play, but we…get in the habit of just writing, or writing something overnight.”

These exercises have helped Kajercline to be, in her own words, “as prepared as I can be, in terms of handling pressure.”

While Kajercline had participated in past Instant Play Festivals as an actress, this was her first experience as a playwright.

“I thought it’d be interesting to challenge myself to try writing,” Kajercline said before the festival. “I just think IPF is such a cool festival, I’ve always enjoyed it, so I think it’ll be cool to be on a different part of it.”

Photo by Caroline Ashford Arya

Kajercline ultimately wrote the play “Family Secrets,” a comedic farce in which a family gathering is ruptured by various dramatic reveals, including a pregnancy, a character coming out of the closet to his mother and the discovery that said mother was sleeping with her daughter’s boyfriend. The audience responded with laughter and delight, and the cast of “Family Secrets” received some of the loudest applause of the Sunday plays.

Junior Sara Staven, the lighting designer, also took on a new position for this year’s festival. She previously served as part of backstage crew and an actress.

“No one really knows what the IPF is gonna be like, with normal shows you can kind of look at a script and then kind of base a design around that,” Staven said. “But with the IPF, it really can be anything and everything.”

Achieving versatility in the production was a challenge for Staven. Much preparation was necessary to ensure that, whenever specific lighting instructions were requested by the director, they could be easily set up and incorporated into rehearsals and performances.

That preparation paid off in spades during the festival. Throughout the two nights, the lights dimmed for characters sneaking around, spotlights shined on actors having moments of shock, the lights shut off for scenes of power cuts and back lighting helped establish the tone of certain scenes.

For Archibald, the effort that was put into the Instant Play Festival productions have always been worth it.

“It’s a lot to organize, a lot of pieces to put together,” Archibald said. “But everybody’s on board and full of energy and excitement, so it generally is a fun and easygoing–with a little stress–project.”

Interesting and unique historical artifacts are abound at the Fort Walla Walla Museum, which specializes in local specimens from the period preceding World War II. Perhaps the most compelling, however, are those that feature in the museum’s rotating special exhibits–and with the opening of “Sewn Into History: A Century of Quilts,” the museum’s staff and interns have gone the extra mile to provide one of their most compelling and detailed exhibitions yet.

The exhibit is the first quilt show at the museum since 2012. It features 21 quilts created between 1840 and 1939. Some adorn the walls of the gallery and others rest folded on tables. Many of the quilts feature short biographies of their creators and some are even paired with dressed-up mannequins representing the women who stitched them together.

Many around the community are excited to have a quilt show back at the museum.

“We had a lot of people that were super excited that we were doing a quilt show in part because we hadn’t had one for a number of years,” Museum Collections Manager Laura Shulz said.

While a typical quilt show is one the museum’s easiest installations, the new show required much more background work to produce a workable exhibit.

“There were enough never-before-displayed quilts that [the staff] did have to write the text and such from scratch,” Shulz said.

Photo by Caroline Ashford Arya

Additionally, Schulz and her team took on the task of uncovering the details of the women behind the quilts.

“This was something that we’d hoped to do for a number of years,” Schulz said. “We had quilts that were more promising to be able to obtain the actual information [than in previous years].”

An invaluable asset for Schulz in conducting this research was Whitman senior Groover Snell, who joined Fort Walla Walla Museum as an intern in May and continued through August. Snell worked on a number of projects during the summer, including a project on regional Latino history and setting up a new exhibit on cavalry swords. His skills came in handy when the research process for “Sewn Into History” began.

Snell’s primary work on the exhibition included family history research and looking for obituaries of the women who made the quilts. To complete this, Snell used a variety of different tools like ancestry.com and microfilm from the Penrose Library archives.

Even with these resources at his disposal, Snell noted that difficulties and complications still arose in the research process.

“We were having a really hard time getting information for one lady,” Snell said. “Some of the documents on ancestry.com said she was married at this time and had a kid, and her obituary didn’t mention important facts or had slightly different dates, and the stories we got from the donor were also a little different.”

In that case, part of the difficulties stemmed from the fact that the woman being researched was divorced, which carried a stigma and meant it was rarely mentioned in obituaries.

Despite the challenges, one of the best quilt shows the museum has ever had came to fruition as a direct result of Schulz’s involvement.

“If Groover hadn’t been interning this summer, there’s no way we could have had enough time to do the bios,” Snell said.

Kt Sharkey, the museum’s Store Manager, found many interesting details in the quilts on display.

“What I found most interesting[…] is all those tiny tiny little stitches,” she said. “When I think of a quilt I think of things that are pieced together, which is what a lot of what those women did, like fifty million little tiny stitches to piece the whole thing together.”

Sharkey also noted the importance of the “extra additions” such as the biographies and mannequins.

Photo by Caroline Ashford Arya

“It gives a face to the people that made it with the biographies, as well as what they made the thing on, like why there’s different sewing machines in there, and the dress the woman wore, and that sort of thing,” Sharkey said.

While the 21 quilts on display fill up the entire gallery, there are many more in the museum’s collection, allowing the museum to be self-sufficient for the current show.

Snell, who continues to work for the museum as a community fellow, recommended the internship to other interested students.

“[The museum has] had good experiences with Whitman interns, so I think they would be happy to have more,” Snell said. “It’s definitely a good opportunity for any Whitman students.”

“Sewn Into History: A Century of Quilts” is now on display at Fort Walla Walla Museum, where it will run through the end of the year.

In a fairly bizarre turn of events, it appears that film distributors decided to wait until August before finally releasing a majority of this summer’s best films. And with the release of the new dramatic Western “Hell or High Water” over Labor Day weekend, it seems they were saving the best for last.

With a few exceptions, such as James Wan’s stellar horror picture “The Conjuring 2” and the excellent sci-fi sequel “Star Trek Beyond,” few films in June or July were anything of special note, between middling Hollywood efforts (e.g. “The Legend of Tarzan”) or uninteresting indie pieces (e.g. “The Lobster.”) Then, on the second weekend of August, the riotously funny spoof picture “Sausage Party” and the stellar family tearjerker “Pete’s Dragon” both entered the marketplace, charging a fairly dull season with new life. They, in turn, were followed by another animated winner, “Kubo and the Two Strings.” All of these films are well worth the theatrical experience, and are certainly among the best and cleverest films of the summer. And yet the most interesting film of the summer, perhaps the year so far, might just be an unassuming little Western no one knew about a month ago.

Directed by Dave Mackenzie (“Starred Up,”) “Hell or High Water” is a modern-day Western crime drama starring Jeff Bridges (“True Grit,”) Chris Pine (“Star Trek”) and Ben Foster (“Lone Survivor.”) Pine and Foster play Toby and Tanner Howard, the latter of whom is an ex-con, as they embark on a string of bank robberies, intending to use the money to buy back their late mother’s ranch for Toby’s children. Bridges plays a Texas Ranger on the edge of retirement who, with his fellow Ranger Alberto (played by Gil Birmingham,) attempts to track down the duo. Along the way, the brothers’ relationship finds itself alternately strained and strengthened as the otherwise straight-laced Toby is simultaneously in awe of and repulsed by his brother, and Bridges’ character pushes back against the inevitability of his own age.

Even on a purely technical level, “Hell or High Water” is an entrancing watch. The Texan landscape is framed gorgeously, with long solitary roads against a setting sun and wheat fields raging with wildfire. The film has a frequent sense of emptiness, with most scenes having no more than three or four characters sharing a setting. The small scope of the characters and their ambitions contrast with the grand canvas of the Texas setting. The musical score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (“Lawless”) proves a haunting backdrop to the whole affair, with burning tension and frustration reflected in the effectively grating strokes of electric violins and ominous plucking of bass guitars.

The acting is superb all around. Chris Pine, following up his effective turn in “Star Trek Beyond,” proves himself to be an actor with significant range, giving a stellar portrayal of a man knowingly gambling his own soul to atone for past sins. Ben Foster is a revelation as Tanner, an unrepentant criminal and yet a three-dimensional human being who genuinely loves his brother in spite of their different approaches to morality. Bridges and Birmingham, meanwhile, maintain a strong interpersonal dynamic, with a mutual respect that shines through in spite of (and to some degree, because of) Bridges’ character’s frequent jests about his partner’s Native American heritage.

“Hell or High Water” is a modern Western with a tone not unlike that of “No Country for Old Men.” Even more so that that film, however, Mackenzie’s picture takes its characters to a number of dark places, and a straight-laced hero is nowhere to be found. The characters are well-developed and relatable, with understandable motivations and engaging personalities. The famously hammy Jeff Bridges dials himself back to a reasonable level, and his character never feels like a caricature, nor does Pine’s, Foster’s or Birmingham’s. And that relatability serves to enhance the film in all its aspects, including the tone, the drama, the atmosphere and the suspense, from its most simple moments to its most shocking turns.

“Hell or High Water” successfully platformed to Walla Walla after an initial limited release, and it comes at a very high recommendation. The film is a must-see for fans of drama, suspense, crime fiction, Westerns and character pieces. It will be interesting to see if the movie is remembered come awards season; even this far out, it’s safe to say it has earned a place at the table.

There’s a light over at the Gesa Power House Theatre and if you follow it, you are sure to find the Frankenstein place, sweet transvestites and time warps galore in Hypoxik Productions’ performance of one of the most famous science fiction double features of all time.

“The Rocky Horror Show,” written by Richard O’Brien, is a stage musical in which the newly engaged couple of Brad and Janet stumble upon the castle of the enigmatic Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who is in the process of unveiling his creation, the muscle-bound Rocky Horror. It was famously adapted into “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in 1975, a film that has become the subject of event screenings featuring costumes, audience participation, and a “shadow cast” miming the film’s events in front of the screen.

The new production’s director, Tyson Kaup, has fond memories of working on prior performances of the show. Looking to start a company in his hometown of Walla Walla, Kaup quickly thought of “Rocky Horror” for the debut production.

“I wanted to push boundaries and I felt like this would be a good place to start. I’m hoping to find and earn the trust of a new audience. It might be an audience that doesn’t really like traditional theater all that much and I’m totally down with that, because neither do I,” Kaup said.

The Hypoxik production of “Rocky Horror” has caught the attention of some students at Whitman, where screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is an annual occurrence. Annie Roge, co-director of the 2016 and 2017 Whitman screenings, expressed excitement for the stage version.

“I think it’s awesome that Walla Walla is launching its own performance of it, featuring exclusively locals, because it’s a great show to perform in lots of different environments and venues and it’ll be really cool to see what they do with it that’s different than Whitman’s performance,” Roge said.

Regarding the difference between the stage performance and a typical “Picture Show” screening, “screenings are fun because of the audience more than the movie. The audience becomes both performer and observer,” Kaup said. “The live show is even more fun because if you shout out to the actors, there’s a chance they might just shout back.”

There will be four performances of “Rocky Horror” at the Power House theatre–two on Sept. 9 and two on Sept. 10. The second performance on Sept. 9 will have some special features of its own – that performance is “RAWW Night,” and will feature narration from the founder of the Rainbow Alliance of Walla Walla (RAWW), James Michael-Vaughan.

In the wake of the mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub in June, Michael-Vaughan created RAWW with the idea that it would not only be a safe space for the LGBTQ community, but also “a place where we can do something good, as queer people, for the community as well,” Michael-Vaughan said.

The organization’s goal is “partying with a purpose,” Michael-Vaughan said, with the goal of raising money for various causes, including supporting victims of shootings and domestic abuse, the homeless, and abused animals. “We basically try to make as much money as we can doing drag shows and live music to send money out to people who need it,” Michael-Vaughan added.

Like Kaup, Michael-Vaughan has a soft spot for “Rocky Horror,” having fond memories of doing the “Time Warp” with friends before parties, and being inspired by Frank-N-Furter’s quote, “Don’t dream it, be it” in living as a drag queen. “It’s actually quite an encouraging show for me, and I’m so happy to be a part of it,” Michael-Vaughan said.

Encountering Kaup by chance at what Kaup called an “epic night of karaoke,” Michael-Vaughan discussed the group and its activities with him, which inspired the “RAWW Night” collaboration. “In thinking about what happened in Orlando, I couldn’t stop feeling like there is a difference between living in a free society, and actually feeling free. Attacks like Orlando threaten to make us feel less free to express ourselves. I think the themes of Rocky [Horror] fight that head on. It celebrates individuality and personal freedom. It seemed like a natural fit and a great idea,” Kaup said.

Tickets to “The Rocky Horror Show” can be purchased at the Gesa Power House Theatre website. The 10:00 p.m. performance on Sept. 9 features Michael-Vaughan and 5 percent of the proceeds will be donated toward the Orlando cause. RAWW and Michael-Vaughan can be contacted via Facebook, and information on other upcoming RAWW events can be found there as well.