The Power House Plays the Long Game: Films Now, Gina Chavez and Heart By Heart on the Way
The Gesa Power House Theatre spent this summer doing something counterintuitive for a music venue: mostly not booking touring music. That's a strategy, not a lapse — and with the theater's fall season now on sale, the logic comes into focus. Through Aug. 21, the room is running its Little Watts Throwback Family Film Series on Friday afternoons at 1 p.m. "Space Jam," "Hook," "Free Willy," "Aladdin" — an affordable, air-conditioned answer to an Eastern Washington August. On Aug. 19, it hosts a National Theatre Live cinema screening of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," with BAFTA winner Lesley Manville. The concerts come later, and they're worth the wait.
The fall lineup was announced in late May by the theater's executive director, Monica Boyle, who laid out a third quarter heavy on film, community programming and cabaret before the music arrives. The headline bookings: Latin Grammy nominee Gina Chavez in concert on Friday, Sept. 18, followed by Heart By Heart — featuring former members of the legendary band Heart — on Saturday, Sept. 26. It's the kind of one-two the 300-seat room does well: an acclaimed touring songwriter and a heritage act with a built-in audience, both close enough to touch.
The Power House is worth understanding as a building. It's a converted 1890s-era gas-and-power plant in downtown Walla Walla, restored into an intimate nonprofit theater — the rare venue where the architecture is part of the ticket. That nonprofit structure is exactly why the summer programming looks the way it does: a mission-driven room can spend its peak tourist months on veterans' storytelling (the Red Badge event, July 9), a short-film festival (Movie Crush, July 10–12) and family matinees, then load its bigger, riskier concert bets into the shoulder season when it isn't competing with every winery patio in the valley for the same audience.
Why this matters for the scene: the Power House is the closest thing Walla Walla has to a year-round destination for touring music, and its choices set the ceiling for what national acts will route through town. A venue that programs thoughtfully — building community goodwill through free and cheap summer events, then cashing that in on fall concerts — is playing a longer game than a room that just chases the next available tour. The reward is a valley that can offer a Latin Grammy nominee a full house in September, not just a wine crowd a patio set in July.
There's also a housekeeping note that says something about the operation's health: the theater rolled out a new ticketing platform (Ludus) for this season, the kind of unglamorous back-end investment that venues make when they intend to be around a while. So enjoy the cheap-seat matinees while the mercury's high — and mark the September calendar now. The Power House is telling you where the good stuff is. It's just asking you to be patient.
Sources: Gesa Power House Theatre Announces Third Quarter Lineup — Walla Walla Union-Bulletin; Gesa Power House Theatre — Shows; Gesa Power House Theatre — Visit Walla Walla