Perseverance Theatre is grateful to Mike Dangeli for donating the masks used in They Don’t Talk Back. Mike is documenting his project via photos on Instagram. You can see what he’s created so far.
Giving Perseverance as a Gift
Give the gift of theatre this holiday season!
If you have a theatre-lover in your life we have wonderful, easy to give, and perfect last-minute gifts you can share! We have a holiday gift card you can print out if you’re buying your gift online and would like to have a festive way to share your gift of theatre. Happy Holidays, and thank you!
- If your theatre-lover is in Anchorage, you can still give them a SUBSCRIPTION to the rest of our season!
- Juneau — give the gift of single tickets to any show. Or, give a FLEX subscription to three or more shows by calling the box office at 907-463-TIXS.
- Anchorage — single tickets are available too!
- Not sure what your theatre-lover would like to see most? Call us at 907-463-TIXS! You can buy a gift certificate that they can redeem for any show or subscription.
- Finally–you can give the gift that keeps on giving season after season–a donation in the name of your theatre-loving friend. THANK YOU!
DOWNLOAD THE HOLIDAY GIFT CARD TO GO WITH YOUR GIFT OF THEATRE
holiday gift card
Theatremaking that Crosses Generations
Cate Ross Returns to the Perseverance Mainstage
Not Medea, the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere by Allison Gregory, features three actors: Shelley Virginia of Anchorage as “Woman,” Perseverance’s actor-in-residence Enrique Bravo as Jason, and long-time company member Cate Ross–the youngest member of the cast–as Chorus.
Cate Ross, born in Juneau, is not new to Perseverance. In fact, she has been treading the boards of PT all her life. Cate is the daughter of Joe Ross and Ginny Hayes, both long time members of the Perseverance artistic company. Joe has been around since the theatre’s founding days: he helped build the theatre’s building in the 1980s. He has worn almost every hat possible over the decades at PT, from actor to technical director to board member. Joe and Ginny met at the theatre and got married. Cate was born in 1990 and was part of the PT family. Cate says,
“I remember running around the building as a little girl while my dad was putting the set together. We were always around the theatre. All the people who helped create Perseverance are long-time family friends, Kate Bowns is my godmother.”
It didn’t take long for Cate to get the stage bug, “I was 8 or 9 when I was in Gypsy. I was the balloon girl in the opening scene. And then I was in the Young Shakespeare Company all through middle school. We would take a bus after school and work with Anita Maynard-Losh.” While in High School, Cate went straight from Young Company to the Perseverance Mainstage. In 2005 she played a fairy in Midsummer Night’s Dream and then played Abigail in Crucible.
Cate left Juneau to study in California. While she lived Outside, she didn’t do any theatre, but last year she decided to make Juneau her home again, and quickly jumped back to the stage. During the day, she’s working at Tracy’s Crab Shack. Cate performed with the Juneau Douglas Little Theatre in Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche. She has also been performing as a drag king in local shows. When we asked if she planned on staying in Juneau, she wasn’t sure, “I am staying for now…ish, but I will say it has been great performing here, it is such a supportive community. I just love it.” Wherever she ends up, we look forward to having her continue to perform on the Perseverance stage.
You can see Not Medea only through November 6th. Get tickets online, at the JACC or by calling 463-TIXS.
Enter the Audience: The Collaboration Continues at Peter and the Starcatcher
One of the fun things about Peter and the Starcatcher is the interaction between the ensemble on the stage and the audience in their seats. So last night, the first time that we had a big crowd in the theatre to watch the first preview, was an important moment for all the artists involved. The actors start to hear and feel the responses to their lines and actions and that can effect their timing, especially in a play like Peter and the Starcatcher, which is ripe with funny moments. Designers can use audience responses to help them put finishing touches on lighting, sound, and more. Even though folks watching the first preview were not seeing a “finished” play they were thoroughly entertained and left with comments like “…it was wonderful and such a hoot!”
As we near opening night, the role of the director is nearly over. Here’s Art Rotch to tell us a bit about all the magic that Teresa K. Pond has brought us.
Teresa K Pond is a director who grew up making theatre in Anchorage, where her father, Robert Pond, ran Anchorage Community Theatre for many many years. I’d heard of her work when she ran ACT herself later, then follower her story as she earned her MFA, ran Millbrook Playhouse in Pennsylvania, then spent time in New York City where she made a successful stage version of Pinkalicious, based on the children’s book. When Teresa moved back to Alaska recently, I made a note to meet her and see her directing work at the first opportunity. Flowers for Algernon is a distinctive piece of theatre that Teresa directed in Anchorage that I was able to see, and we went out for coffee to chat about the play, directing, and the kind of theatre we each like to make in Alaska. I remember spending a long time at Side Street Espresso and came away wanting to find the right project to introduce Teresa to Perseverance Theatre.
About a year later, Peter and the Starcatcher made our short list, which is usually a time in our programming process when we start asking if there’s a director in our group that will have an affinity for the play and understand what it would be to make it into a production for Alaskan audiences. Teresa fit the bill in several ways: her experience making theatre for young audiences would help with the young characters at the center of this play, her skills with musicals and movement would be valuable, and her deep passion for British humor and adventure were plusses. She certainly understood how the story would present in Alaska, and appreciated as much as we did how the new book writes out some of the dated challenges of the original, such as the portrayal of indigenous characters, and how the character of Molly gives us the kind of self-assured and empowered heroine we seek for our times.
A Swirl of Collaboration Brings Peter and the Starcatcher to Life
Artistic director Art Rotch just spent his birthday in “tech.” I get the feeling that’s how he’d like it to be. For designers–the artists that create the world of the theatre through sound, lighting, set, paint, costume, props, and more–technical rehearsals are when everything is finally layered together in real time with the acting and movement on the stage. Art snapped some photos during tech, and generously left us some notes below about the process that we usually don’t see until it’s complete on opening night!
It’s tech week for Peter and the Starcatcher, which is the time we work through every moment of the show with the actors, sound, lighting and other designers, get used to working in the costumes and finish them off, add in the live musicians and learn their cues, and generally make all the tiny details that add up to great theatre perfect. Between figuring out two different sailing ships, a tropical island that turns into Neverland, and magic, that’s a lot of details! Fortunately Amy Altadonna and Dan Anteau, our stellar sound and lighting designers, are both talented artists who never grew up themselves, and we seem to have found a group of actors who have lots of pirate DNA already.
We were working on a section of the play where Molly and the lost boys sneak around different parts of the ship, discovering lots of strange goings on below decks in different cabins. Then Molly talked to her father using their magic amulets, which are a great prop put together by Julia Garrity , our stellar props master. And no rehearsal for this play would feel right without stars, which Dan Anteau, Matt Allar and Julia created using atmospheric lighting and very simple glowing props spread over the multi-level set. Oh yes, and then we made Molly ‘fly’. All in a nights work.
In this play, the actors become their characters as actors can do so well, but they also create an ensemble of storytellers who just love the magic of live acting, kind of like the group of actors who originally made the script together in the original production. It’s most like what Perseverance did when we put The Thirty-Nine Steps on stage a few years ago, taking a script originally made by actors with all the creative theatricality that actors love, and finding that heartbeat again with our own Alaskan gang of theatre-loving performers.
Raffle Winners Announced for 32nd Annual Travel Raffle
Perseverance is happy to announce the winners of our 32nd Annual Travel Raffle.
| Grand Prize | Carolyn | Garcia |
| 2nd Prize | Christ | Goard |
| 3rd Prize | John | Parsi |
| 4th Prize | Anya | Maier |
| 5th Prize | Dave | Lefebvre |
| 6th prize | Roger | Birk |
| 7th Prize | Rafie | Wilson |
| 8th Prize | Munkh-Urguu | |
| 9th Prize | Barb | Potter |
| 10th Prize | Adam | Wilkinson |
| 11th Prize | Elaine | Loopstra |
| 12th Prize | Laura | Stats |
| 13th Prize | Karrold | Jackson |
| 14th Prize | Laura | Kurt |
| 15th Prize | Heather | Sinclair |
| 16th Prize | Suzi | Pearson |
| 17th Prize | Liz | Babstead |
| 18th Prize | Bob | Wild |
| 19th Prize | Michael | Johnson |
| 20th Prize | Koko | |
| 21st Prize | Daniel | Collison |
| 22nd Prize | Margie | Ramos |
| 23rd Prize | Lyn | McCoy |
| 24th Prize | Amy | Dressel |
| 25th Prize | Jackie | Schulz |
Moving Mountains: Annapurna goes from Anchorage to Juneau
Perseverance Theatre’s statewide season allows designers the opportunity and challenge to build a set that works in two very different theatres: the modified thrust stage of the theatre’s Douglas, AK space, and the traditional proscenium in the Sydney Laurence Theatre at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts–Perseverance’s Anchorage home. We asked Artistic Director Art Rotch, the set designer for Annapurna, to talk about the process of designing in two places. Here are his thoughts and a few behind-the-scenes photos.
Juneau Scale Model
Annapurna’s design was made for both theatre, as always, and we work in a scale model, in this case 1/2” to 1’-0”, a relatively detailed scale, which was great for this show because the interior of the trailer where the story takes place lets us do slice-of-reality-type theatre, as if when you see the play it’s like a big a can opener had been taken to the trailer so we can peak inside. Lots of details to render, very fun, and to make the greatest effect of sliced away reality, our set piece trailer has a partial roof as well as walls and a raked floor for the effect that rakes have of visually pushing the action closer to us watching.
I wanted Emma’s arrival and presence to change the space, by cleaning it up, so we put a lot of stuff in a great state of disarray. In Anchorage, the stuff was harder to see, but in Juneau, we added details like labels on the pill bottles and book titles that the audience could actually read because they sit so close.
Getting set up in Anchorage
The story includes references to two mountains: One is a peak in the rockies that Ulysses describes his attempts to climb and can be seen out the windows. The other is Annapurna, the 8000 meter Himalayan peak that is the title of the play, and that Ulysses names his final epic poem for. Being able to see the mountain while watching was important, so I designed a drop that the shop painted beautifully. The trailer set piece was tall, so the peak of the mountain had to be placed high on the drop to be seen above it. This took a lot of trial and error in the model making phase, looking at where to place the mountain in the stage picture. Kevin and Rebecca did a great job of rehearsing the places where the mountain is referred to by the characters even though we did not see it until the last day of rehearsals on stage in Anchorage. Because the Anchorage theatre is taller than Perseverance, the drop is taller than the space, so you can see some of it rolled up when you see the show.
Tech Rehearsals in Juneau
Finally, we added an old scrim, a type of translucent fabric, that is torn, patched, and dipped in earthy browns, that hangs in front of the drop and frames the trailer piece. The idea is to separate the outside world of mountains and the trailer park that Lucy Peckham’s sound design brings to life (Sounds of dogs barking, cars starting, birds and cicadas, etc) from the world of Emma and Ulysses’ interaction–which is a world unto them as a couple and separate from others. The scrim shape was quite different in the Anchorage space, and had to be adapted to fit, kind of the reverse of how we usually do is when the sets go from Juneau to Anchorage
As we put the set in and began working with it, we were able to add more details to the set dressing, to how the actors played moments could be more subtle and detailed as well. The show was very good in the Anchorage space, but being closer to it and being able to read the details more intimately makes the experience in the Juneau theatre space really special. You can see Annapurna through May 29 in Juneau.
A Letter from Artistic Director Art Rotch
Dear Friends,
We are as shocked and saddened as anyone to learn of the serious allegations regarding one of our actors, Jack Dalton. The fact that Mr. Dalton is alleged to have preyed on a child, while participating as an actor in a play that depicts the damage such behavior does to families and communities, adds to the difficulty of making sense of what to do next.
Here is Vera Starbard’s thoughtful, heartfelt response.
The theatre has great partners in the behavioral health field that supported our production and our artists involved in the play, and we’ve been in contact to confirm they will help us again as we deal with the aftermath of this news.
Most of all, we are reminded that the play Vera Starbard wrote describes a community in the aftermath of discovering an abuser and their victims, much as we are now. This news is affirming–if gut wrenching–of the need to speak up and call for an end to the cycle that perpetuates predatory behavior and creates new victims. The need to speak is the same as the need to support, to end isolation created by silence, to call for healing.
We are not alone, none of us is alone, as long as we share our true hearts.
Regarding our next steps:
As an arts organization dedicated to telling stories in the form of theatre, we do not judge, but leave that to the legal system.
We are not counselors, but recommend those services where needed. In Juneau, Perseverance is grateful for the services of SEARHC and AWARE. In Anchorage, STAR and the Alaska Children’s Trust provided invaluable support during the making of Our Voices Will Be Heard.
Most of all, we support our playwright, Vera Starbard, in her efforts to make theatre that is true and effective at bringing to life on the stage the Alaska that she loves. We support all of the writers and artists, especially actors, who put so much of themselves into creating worlds for us to experience. We support our audiences and communities with what we make. Particularly when we make worlds of Alaska come alive on stage, we seek to make those worlds as true as we can: Sometimes funny, always loving, sometimes frightening, and never alone, because theatre is always a shared experience between us as storytellers, and our community in attendance.
As we seek understanding and a path forward, we do so in community with you. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Art Rotch
Artistic Director, Perseverance Theatre
STAR 2016
STAR 2016
Summer Theatre Arts Rendezvous
Rehearsals and performances at Perseverance Theatre
Summer Theatre Arts Rendezvous (STAR), Perseverance Theatre’s five-week youth acting program, provides theatrical training and performance opportunities to students who are excited about theatre.
It is time to register for Perseverance Theatre’s Summer Theatre Arts Rendezvous! Work with local and out-of-town professional directors and designers on one of three exciting shows. This five-week program is perfect for young actors who are committed to theatre and performance. As a theatre training program, STAR is a great opportunity for young people with little experience. In addition to rehearsals, students will participate in daily workshops on voice, movement, and acting technique. Students aged 10-18 will perform one of three plays: the musical Singin’ in the Rain JR., a modern adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone, or Extreme Theatre!, an original piece using improvisation, physical theatre, and playwriting.
STAR runs June 27 through July 31. Tuition is $450.
The Plays:
Singin’ in the Rain JR.
Adapted by Betty Comden and Adolph Green from their original screenplay
Songs by Nacio Herb Brown
Lyrics by Arthur Freed
Join director Dawn Kolden in this humorous and uplifting story about love and stardom. As silent films are being replaced with talkies, starlet Lina Lamont is faced with the challenge of making her nasally, high-pitched voice more appealing to the ear. A different arrangement is worked out when fellow actor, Don Lockwood, convinces their film producer to hire another actress he admires, Kathy Selden.
Antigone
Adapted by Greg Banks from Sophocles’ play of the same title
Join director Doniece Gott in a modern and lively retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone, the tragic story of a young woman’s fight for justice. The unshakable Antigone, determined to give her deceased brother a proper burial against the orders of her equally headstrong uncle, must confront a steadily darkening fate. This play addresses morality, family, sacrifice, and rebellion.
Extreme Theatre!
Seattle-based actor and playwright K. Brian Neel brings his extreme talents to Juneau for the STAR program. He uses physical improvisation to create bold and visionary theatre performed all over the world. Join him in combining physical theatre, Viewpoints, playwriting, and improvisation to create an extreme devised show.
Rehearsals:
Monday, June 27-Friday, July 22
Monday–Friday, 10am-2pm and 1-5pm
Performances:
Friday, July 22-Sunday, July 30
Rehearsal/Performance Location:
Perseverance Theatre
Who:
Students ages 10-18
Registration:
To register, call Tom Robenolt at 907-364-2421, ext. 226.
Cost:
$425 if payment is received before May 27, 2016. Tuition after that date is $450.
Payment and Refund Policy: If the student is accepted to the program, pays and withdraws before June 10, 2016, 50% of the tuition will be refunded. No refunds thereafter.
Perseverance Theatre 2016-2017 Anchorage Season
Peter and the Starcatcher
By Rick Elice based on the book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
September 30 – October 16, 2016
The Neverland you never knew.
13-year-old Molly Aster adventures with pirates, a giant crocodile, and lots of angry Mollusks as she and three orphan boys attempt to return a trunk of precious star-stuff to her father. Pursued by a mustached pirate captain and his sidekick Smee, Molly searches for her father and makes some startling discoveries about herself, while the orphans take up residence on the island where dreams are born and time is whatever you wish it to be.
Not Medea
By Allison Gregory
(An NNPN Rolling World Premiere)
November 11-20, 2016
A classic story of modern motherhood.
A tired mother finally gets one night to herself. She escapes to the theatre but becomes part of the performance and reveals the secret of her past. She is not Medea, but a contemporary riff on the Greek classic that asks surprising questions about motherhood, marriage, adoption, and how our actions impact our children. Surprisingly funny and tragically honest, Not Medea is the show you did not know you meant to see.
A Christmas Carol
By Arlitia Jones and Michael Evan Haney based on the book by Charles Dickens
December 16-29, 2016
An Anchorage Holiday Tradition.
Witness Ebenezer Scrooge’s miraculous Christmas Eve transformation in our own adaptation of Dickens famous book. Ebenezer Scrooge is a greedy businessman, with no place in his life for kindness, compassion, or charity, destined to a lonely old age. But when four ghosts appear and warn him of a miserable afterlife, Scrooge is reminded of all the chances he had before to make different choices. Charles Dickens classic tale of redemption never ceases to please.
Hold These Truths
By Jeanne Sakata
January 6-15, 2017
The nail that sticks out gets hit.
Gordon Hirabayashi always knew he was different. When he was a young man in 1943, and Japanese-Americans were being moved into camps, Gordon chose to fight US Government action rather than obey an order he felt was unlawful. His experiences in the courts and camps of the time sparked his passion for the U.S. constitution, and his belief in our duty to uphold it. This is his true story.
They Don’t Talk Back
By Frank Henry Kaash Katasse
(A World Premiere produced in Association with Native Voices at the Autry and La Jolla Playhouse)
March 3-12, 2017
Two Tlingit cousins come of age.
When 17 year-old Nick takes a floatplane from Juneau to live with his grandparents in their village, his arrival means changes for his fisherman grandfather, his cousin Edward who hasn’t spent much time outside the village, and his Desert Storm-veteran father. Just as these Tlingit men are adjusting to their new lives together, the boys’ grandmother delivers shocking news. A world premiere portrait of a modern Alaska family.
To Kill a Mockingbird
By Christopher Sergel, based on the book by Harper Lee
April 28 – May 7, 2017
A compelling classic with urgent relevance.
Young Scout watches her father, the lawyer Atticus Finch, defend a black man accused of a horrible crime. Can Atticus secure justice for his client in this racially charged case, or does his influence have limits? Will the family pay an unacceptable price if he tries? See Harper Lee’s beloved tale of a young lawyer and his family testing their limits and the unwritten laws of their time.