no *Wicked* next season

Best of Broadway Spokane has announced their 2007-08 season. No *Wicked,* "but it wasn't for lack of trying," Bobo was told. Maybe next year ...

Movin' Out, Sept. 25-30, 2007
Billy Joel and Twyla Tharp

Chad Mitchell Trio, Oct. 6
Chad's from Spokane; first time here in 43 years
some funny B&W clips of the Trio in action on the Ed Sullivan Show and on a Dinah Shore special

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Oct. 30-Nov. 4
in the videotape compilation showing off the announced productions, they cut around John Lithgow; apparently they figured nobody would recognize Norbert Leo Butz -- anyway, it's not THAT cast ...

The Wedding Singer, Nov. 27-Dec. 4
first national tour

Jesus Christ Superstar, Dec. 18-19
with Ted Neeley ("the original Jesus Christ," as Jack Lucas of WestCoast Entertainment referred to him; Neeley, who was born in Sept. 1943, was 30 -- appropriately enough -- when he played Jesus in the 1973 film; that makes him 64 by the time he appears here)

Riverdance, Jan. 18-20, 2008
the final year of that tour

Gypsy, Feb. 21-24, 2008
was on Broadway in 2003, and is now, as Lucas said, "being resurrected" for a national tour

Mamma Mia! March 25-30, 2008
Six nights of ABBAbabba.


Only Movin' Out, Dirty Rotten, Wedding Singer and Gypsy are part of the season proper; the other four events are add-on shows. Lucas mentioned that "there's always the possibility" that other shows might be added

A sign of last-minute juggling: on the signs lowered from the fly space on the INB Center stage to announce the season, both Riverdance and Mamma Mia! were dated Jan. 18-20, 2008 -- so one or the other got swapped into its present date

Lucas characterized the April 24-26 production of Cats as "the fourth one, I think," that WestCoast has brought to Spokane. In fact, it is the sixth production of Cats at the Opera House/INB Center: August 1987 (the very first BofB show in Spokane, followed by feline productions in 1988, '93, '97, 2004 and now 2007. (And that doesn't count the productions at CdA Summer Theatre and at WSU's Beasley Coliseum.)

This is being billed as the 20th Anniversary Season. In fact, the 20th season is concluding this spring; the 2007-08 season will be the 21st in Spokane.

More than 1.5 million attendees at BofB shows in Spokane over the past 20 years

$10 million in economic impact every year in Spokane: hotels, restaurants, shopping and other local services

Visit Janean Jorgensen's wedmatinee.blogspot.com for a list of the shows that MIGHT have come here (and, in some cases, are coming to the Northwest): Putnam County Spelling Bee, Light in the Piazza, Camelot

Note that Spamalot opens in Portland on Aug. 22 and in Seattle on Oct. 10, 2007
Sweeney Todd and Avenue Q will play Portland in April and June of 2008