Ghosts of Celilo

[September 26th, 2007]

Here’s exciting news for anyone who was around the Northwest in the ’50s or listened to KQFM in the ’80s: Marv Ross, the manlier half of the duo behind Quarterflash (for those of you from my generation, they played “Harden My Heart”), is finally producing the musical he’s been working on for the past decade. Ghosts of Celilo , premiering at the Winningstad Theatre this weekend, is a coming-of-age story about an angsty Native American teenager named Chokey Jim that takes place during one of the Northwest’s greatest tragedies—the drowning, in 1957, of Celilo Falls and the nearby village of Celilo by the Dalles Dam.

The inundation of Celilo is an event that resonates strongly with many Oregonians. The construction of the dam destroyed a fishing culture that had existed for at least 10,000 years—in 1805, Lewis and Clark called the falls a “great emporium...where all the neighboring nations assemble”—and displaced some 35 families, but to many of the state’s non-Native residents it represented the region’s emergence as a modern economy.

Telling the story of Celilo Falls has long been an ambition for Ross, but his work might never have come to fruition without Noah Hunt, a 16-year-old actor from Kennewick, Wash. His agent, Jackie Jacobs, says she was introduced to the producer and songwriter by a mutual friend on a visit to Portland two years ago. “He’d just conducted a national search [for a lead actor]. He told me, ‘I guess my dream is going to die because I couldn’t find someone to play the part. I need a Native teenager who can sing and act.’ And I said, ‘I’ve got the kid for you.’”

“I didn’t even know it was an audition,” Hunt said. “It was the first I’d ever heard of Celilo Falls and the dam. I feel really honored to be telling this true story.”

Now this normal kid—who plays in a Christian rock band called the Underclass Preview and who started his acting career as a duck in Charlotte’s Web —has his sights set high. “I want to work towards Broadway, and I feel this is a big step in that direction,” he says. Maybe a bigger step than he’d imagined—last Friday, Hunt auditioned for the touring production of Spring Awakening , Duncan Sheik’s Tony-sweeping musical. “It went really well,” he says. “I got a callback on Saturday, and now I’m just waiting to see if I get a call.”