Playwright, author, screenwriter, actor, educator, director… Tlingit theatre artist Frank Henry Kaash Katasse is certainly a multi-talented guy! And in just over a month, his brand new play Where the Summit Meets the Stars will receive its world premiere production on the Perseverance Theatre mainstage. 

Okay, that’s your cue to get really excited. Seriously! This is a good one. Here’s a little sneak peek: 

Where the Summit Meets the Stars is an ethereal Alaska Native story driven by music, dance, and the culture of the Tlingit people. When a near-death experience derails her flight through Southeast Alaska, Rose awakens to find herself in the care of the kind man who pulled her to safety. But who is this mysterious stranger? And how is it possible that she survived? As they journey by boat through the darkness and fog, Rose untangles the mysteries of her past, questions the world around her, and comes to an inescapable crossroads.

I mean, if you weren’t already pumped before, you’re definitely hooked now, right? In my own excitement, I decided to hop on the phone with Frank to learn more about this upcoming production, his work as a writer, and how Where the Summit Meets the Stars came to be. 

I asked him to go back to the very beginning and answer this question: How did you become a playwright? 

“Initially I wrote a monologue because I was wanting one to audition with, and I was having a hard time finding a Native monologue that I could use,” Frank explained. “I wanted to Indigenize my audition, and I was looking frantically for a monologue and I just could not find one!”

So in order to support himself as an actor, he sat down after work one day and wrote a monologue that was just a few minutes long. But what he found was that not only was he able to write pieces that spoke to him personally, but that he really enjoyed the actual process of writing. He was inspired by the things he saw around him, and that led to a new habit of writing on a more regular basis. And his monologues and poetry began to form something bigger.

“It all kind of came together and I realized I could make it a play,” continued Katasse. “And that became They Don’t Talk Back.” 

But at first, it was difficult to get the full-length play They Don’t Talk Back off the ground. 

“No one read it,” said Frank. “Not their fault! I get stuff and I don’t read it sometimes. So I thought, ‘Maybe it’s not that great’, and I kind of sat on it for a long time.”

But when Frank was introduced to Jean Bruce Scott, the founder and Producing Executive Director of Native Voices at the Autry, she learned that he was an emerging playwright and encouraged him to submit his work to a Native Voices full-length play competition. His play was a hit, and They Don’t Talk Back would eventually go on to be produced by Native Voices and La Jolla Playhouse, and by Perseverance Theatre. After that success, he continued to write, dabbling in plays, television scripts, books, short stories, and more.

“I still have major impostor syndrome, because I never studied how to do this,” said Frank. “But acting in plays for years beforehand gave me an idea of the style and tone of plays that I like to read and do. I was trying to use as much of that as I could.” 

And he has certainly been able to embrace his own interests, style, poetry, and humor in his work, exploring themes and stories that resonate with him and with his culture. 

“I like to tell contemporary Indigenous stories. I purposely try to timestamp all of them so I can try to fit them into different decades over the past forty years,” elaborated Katasse. “Going to school in Hawaii, I loved the idea of local theatre and Indigenous Hawaiian theatre and I thought, ‘This is something that’s needed in Southeast Alaska for my Tlingit culture!’ I want to do plays showing contemporary Indigenous stories. This is us right now. I’m trying to change the idea that a lot of Indigenous stories are in the past.” 

With They Don’t Talk Back, The Spirit of the Valley, his work as a writer for the PBS Kids show Molly of Denali, and now Where the Summit Meets the Stars, Frank is certainly succeeding in bringing contemporary Alaska Native characters and stories to the stage and screen. And he purposely creates characters that he knows anyone in the audience can relate to. 

“It’s like you’re playing darts and you’re throwing darts at a dartboard,” Frank explained. “Everyone can throw a dart at that board and find something they relate to in that play. People who are Indigenous are going to get closer to the bullseye. The random dude from San Diego is going to throw it and hit an outside ring because he knew the characters and knew the story. Making universal characters that people can relate to was really eye-opening. We’re all human beings and we’re all connected to each other!”

And this brings me back to Where the Summit Meets the Stars, a story set in Southeast Alaska featuring modern-day Tlingit characters facing very real and relevant challenges. Perseverance has been hoping to bring this piece to the mainstage for a long time, and if not for the pandemic, it would have already made its world premiere. Yet even with all of this anticipation, the script itself came together quite quickly. 

When Frank accepted a short playwriting residency with La Jolla Playhouse, he expected to use his time there to write a completely different story.

“But you get an idea in your head and you just start writing,” said Frank. “It was a seed of an idea that kept festering and grew. I’d wake up at four in the morning and feverishly write. I remember telling an elder that, and he told me that four in the morning was a magical time to be writing. It was a very magical journey to write this.” 

And when the folks at La Jolla asked if he could give them a dozen pages by the end of the week, Frank was able to tell them, “I wrote thirty yesterday!” Where the Summit Meets the Stars was written in just one week, an amazing feat for a full-length play, and the script has continued to grow and evolve since. 

Now, Katasse is directing the world premiere production of his own play on the Perseverance mainstage. And when I asked him how it felt to be directing a live in-person production of something he had written, he said, “It feels good, man!” 

He then went on to say, “There’s nothing like the excitement of being in the theatre on opening night. Every once in a while you’ll get a zap of zen when you’re working on these plays. It feels like the first time you’re hearing other people say your words or hearing people discussing your play, and you’re like, ‘Wow they really care about this!’ I think just being there and experiencing something with them and sharing the same heartbeat and perspective as an audience member, it’s something magical. It’s a very human thing.”

You can experience the magic by joining us in the audience for this ethereal Alaskan production.  And you can also support Frank Henry Kaash Katasse’s work by tuning in to Molly of Denali or keeping an eye out for his new play Once Upon a Tide which recently received a reading produced by Theatre Alaska featuring an entirely Tlingit cast.

Now I have to ask: How does it feel to know that we’ll be able to see Where the Summit Meets the Stars soon? It feels good, man.

Where the Summit Meets the Stars runs on the Perseverance Mainstage in Juneau October 7th, 2022 – October 23rd, 2022. For more information, go online to PTALASKA.ORG.

Theatre made me trans. 

No, but seriously, if I hadn’t been introduced to theatre, I would be a different person. And that person would be very unhappy and unable to make sense of who they are. 

Before I learned how to write, five-year-old me used Broadway cast recordings of Les Misérables, Urinetown, and Fiddler on the Roof as a means to express and perform my gender identity before I even knew what gender was. I would sing, dance, and act out all of the traditionally male roles — my favorites being Valjean, Officer Lockstock, and Tevye. My little voice would do its best to mimic the deep, rich sounds of the professionally-trained and fully-grown men. I would stand on a precarious stack of pillows to give the very convincing illusion that I was tall. Sometimes I would give myself facial and chest hair using my mom’s mascara. I felt like I could be anyone, like I was a shapeshifter who laughed at the idea of gender being static — but at the time, I settled with being a “tomboy.” 

At the adventurous age of seven, I wrote hundreds of pages of stories entirely constructed of dialogue, which my mom called plays. My most significant story was about an armadillo named “Army” who was based off of the title character from the movie Rango. When I wrote Army’s dialogue, I imagined what I would say as myself if I existed in the world of Rango, where quirky desert animal townspeople use water as currency and are under constant threat from hawks and gunslinging rattlesnakes. Army is just somebody who wants to help everyone. He’s also a guy, which was very important to me. He became the version of myself that didn’t need to come out as trans. 

Looking back as a seventeen-year-old who’s been out for almost six years, I see how little-me was already a trans playwright.

After I came out, it became my mission to help fill the void of trans representation in mainstream media. I only wrote about trans people, and a few of my teachers, especially my playwriting teacher at school, worried that I was limiting myself. They thought that I wouldn’t be “successful” as a writer, but their ignorance only fueled the importance of my mission. I indulged myself with all-trans casts, research about gender non-conforming people in the early twentieth century, and playwriting workshops on Zoom led by people who became my new mentors. For the first time ever, I had a trans writing teacher. 

He was the artistic director of a trans-owned and operated theatre in Minneapolis called Uprising. I watched recordings of the plays produced by Uprising, all of them centering trans voices, and I was invigorated. This, I thought to myself, is the kind of theatre I want to see everywhere. This is the kind of theatre I want to make! My first pandemic project became a one-act play about uncovering the lost history of trans people, while centering the life of Murray Hall. 

Murray Hall was a real person in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. He lived his entire life as a man for over fifty years, until his female sex was discovered after his death from breast cancer. He was originally from Scotland, but was forced to emigrate after his ex-wife outed him as a “crossdresser” to the police. To escape prosecution, he changed his name and escaped to New York, where he founded an employment agency and dabbled in local politics. All of this is just scraping the surface of his life story, which I’ve continued to research for the past three years. 

Writing a play about him was very emotional for me. I felt like I was learning about a long lost family member, like Murray was my great-great-great-grandfather. I believe that there’s this ineffable connection that all trans people can experience with each other — a connection that can transcend generations, families, and distances and allow us to feel like we really know and understand each other without ever having met before. It’s rooted in our shared experience, certainly, but I believe there is also a spiritual aspect to it as well — like all of our spirits are connected. 

The playwriting workshop I took at Uprising allowed me to establish my identity as a trans playwright. From them, I gained the confidence I needed to continue writing plays about trans people, despite the discouraging feedback I was receiving from school at the time. Unfortunately, Uprising is no longer in operation — they had to permanently close last year. When they closed, I was devastated, but I knew that they weren’t the only theatre out there where trans people are not just included, but celebrated. 

In 2021, Perseverance’s STAR program gave me the opportunity to stage my first ten-minute play. Violins With Alaskan Names is about a recently-out nonbinary kid (Aubrey) who goes camping with their step-dad, who is still learning how to be supportive. The play ends with them playing a violin duet together after they come to an understanding. I played the part of the step-dad, and one of the other STAR students played Aubrey. Rehearsing and performing this play was an intense experience for both of us, both emotionally and mentally. I remember feeling guilty for sharing a play that was so personal, but I was encouraged by my castmate and the mentors at STAR. They felt like this piece was important and that it could help people who are experiencing a similar conflict feel seen. I learned, from that experience, that theatre can help people find validation and closure. I am so grateful for everyone involved in STAR 2021 — without them, I wouldn’t have been able to develop the emotional confidence necessary to produce plays like Violins With Alaskan Names. 

Fast forward to May 2022, and I was commissioned by the STAR 2022 team to write a one-act play adaptation of a work in the public domain. I had already started to write an adaptation of As You Like It earlier in the Spring with a trans and contemporary spin, but I knew that STAR had recently produced an abridged As You Like It. I also wanted to challenge  myself to choose something that wasn’t Shakespeare. I was drawn to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd because it was by Agatha Christie, the “Queen of Mystery,” and because it was one of her lesser known works. 

I fell in love with the character of Hercule Poirot, and I quickly realized that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is probably the most underrated Christie work ever. As I wrote this play, I thought about all of my past pieces, especially the one about Murray Hall. While Murray and Hercule are of different generations and one is fictional and one is not, I interpreted them both as being trans men who live “stealth” (trans people who live as their authentic selves, but don’t openly disclose their transness). With Poirot, I felt that same connection I felt with Murray Hall. I can’t really explain why, but I believe that one of the reasons why Poirot lived such a secretive life was because he didn’t want people tracing him to a different version of himself that he used to be. And like Murray Hall, some of the nosy and ignorant people around him believed that he was “hiding something,” but they couldn’t quite identify where their suspicion came from. Poirot also possesses a deep empathy and sense of awareness that contributes to his genius as a detective, but I wondered where and how he could learn to have such abilities.

I believe that him being of the trans experience explains this perfectly. When one is forced to hide a part of themself for a long time, they are required to develop a heightened awareness of their environment as a means of survival. His empathy could be attributed to the fact that he’s lived as different versions of himself and therefore can directly relate to the experience of people of both of the binary genders. He often talks about the differences in psychology between men and women (now an out-dated concept), and I noticed that his gendered ideas of psychology don’t actually apply to him. For example, he says that women are more observant and have stronger intuition than men, but he too is much more observant and intuitive than most people. He would probably explain this by saying that he is “a genius,” but perhaps he might also say that he has “the best mental qualities of both genders.” 

While I stand by the fact that theatre has enabled me to explore transness, I do not believe that I am “making” theatre trans. Anyone familiar with the origins of theatre would be able to see that theatre has been trans (or at the very least queer) for a long time. And likewise, I’m not “making” Poirot trans, I’m just affirming it as a possibility. Doing so also acknowledges the fact that trans people existed a hundred years ago, they just couldn’t be as open and explicit about it as a trans person like myself can be today. 

Producing trans plays like this adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd pays tribute to both the history of theatre and the history of trans people, and I am so grateful to Perseverance Theatre for housing my tribute as well as my growth as a trans playwright. 

It’s been a long journey since Covid first struck, and though it’s not over, it does feel good to say that we at Perseverance have completed our first full season of in-person theatre since March of 2020. 

We’ve had to be flexible, cautious, optimistic, and we worked hard to make it happen as safely as possible. And when we opened Fun Home in April of this year, a production we’d been waiting to present to the public since the pandemic first began its spread, I think it’s safe to say that the Perseverance Theatre community definitely felt like celebrating. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we can finally see the light through the trees. 

Of course, we certainly aren’t the only Alaskan organization that had to adapt quickly and creatively to these strange circumstances. Countless organizations, groups, institutions, and businesses were faced with challenges they had never expected to face. How could they continue to pursue their missions and serve their communities while staying safe, financially afloat, and adaptive? Could technology help us all to move forward and continue our work? With all of these changes, how will we all grow and evolve over time? Where will we be in ten years? 

It is these questions that inspired a season-long project that we’ve been working on since November of 2021: An Alaska-wide digital time capsule. And we’re getting ready to “seal” that time capsule on its flash drive in one short week, not to be “opened” again for the next ten years.

But first, let’s backtrack. 

Do you remember Voyager One by Jared Michael Delaney? The play that was chosen to open our first in-person season in the fall? Based on the fascinating history of the actual Voyager 1 space probe, the play is set in both the 1970s and the far distant future. The playwright asks the audience to think about how we’ll be remembered, what mark we’re leaving behind when we’re gone, and where we can find hope in our own future. We’re asked to think about our place in the universe as human beings and our relationship to each other. The story of Voyager One opens up conversations about space, time, humanity, and beyond. 

As we worked on this production, the themes of the play continued to resonate outside of the rehearsal room, especially as we thought about our own moment in time. We wondered what we could do beyond the production to continue to engage with these ideas and with our community.

The answer was simple. The real Voyager 1 space probe, launched in the 1970s and still floating through the cosmos to this day, contains a fascinating piece of history in the form of the Golden Record. This actual record plated in gold is filled with images, music, greetings in 55 different languages, and a series of “Sounds of Earth”, and was designed specifically so that if alien life were to discover Voyager 1, they’d be able to learn about humanity from what had been etched into its grooves. It is essentially a time capsule of humanity. 

Thus, our own time capsule was born. First, we determined the time capsule’s medium, settling on a digital time capsule contained on a simple flash drive. This would allow us the opportunity to look at how quickly technology can change over the course of ten years and to reflect on how significant those changes have been for all of us, especially over the last two years. It would also allow us to easily connect and share with organizations both in and out of Juneau. 

We then reached out to arts and cultural organizations throughout the state, and we asked ourselves and each other the following questions: 

What are we as artists and leaders working toward at this moment in time? Where do we hope to be in ten years? Where are we now and how are we moving forward? 

What emerged was an eclectic and beautiful mix of materials including images, text, audio, and video sent to us by 12 different organizations from Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Palmer. From Alaska Native translations of text to images of successful in-person events to a full-length radio play, the time capsule contributions are a wide range of material showcasing each organization’s accomplishments, challenges, creativity, and perseverance over the last two years. 

And on June 30th at 4:30 pm, we will “seal” this time capsule in its flash drive and it will live in the Perseverance Theatre lobby for the next ten years. 

Sure, ten years may seem like a short time, but think about how quickly things change. Ten years ago, we couldn’t have imagined that a pandemic would ravage the globe and change so much of what we knew. We couldn’t have predicted that we’d be wearing masks and attending Zoom meetings and watching theatre online. We don’t know where we’ll be in ten years, and the other participating organizations don’t know either. 

What we can do is think about where we are now and where we would like to be. We can hope that the work we’ve done now has led to something positive and has done some good for our communities. We can hope that we are thriving and that we’ve continued to collaborate with each other beyond this time capsule. We can have hope for the future, just like those who sent Voyager 1 into space over forty years ago. And when we open the time capsule ten years from now, I hope we can look back with joy and think about how far we’ve come.

Participating Organizations: 

Alaska Humanities Forum

Alaska Native Heritage Center

Anchorage Concert Chorus

COVIDatos Alaska

Doyon Foundation

Fairbanks Arts Association

Juneau-Douglas City Museum

Juneau Ghost Light Theatre

Out North

Perseverance Theatre

Pier One Theatre

University of Alaska Fairbanks Music Department 

University of Alaska Southeast

Two years ago, we were forced to close our doors to in-person audiences just days before opening night of Fun Home. Unsure of when we would be back, if ever, this show became the production that never was, and we anxiously awaited the day when we could open up our space and fill the theatre again. 

After two long, long years, as a true testament to Perseverance Theatre’s name, Fun Home has found life on our stage once again, and I, for one, couldn’t be more excited. This show makes me laugh, it makes me smile, it makes me gasp, and as I discovered on opening night this past weekend, at least five of the songs bring tears to my eyes. Trust me, you’re not going to want to miss this one. 

But what is Fun Home even about, you may ask? Based on the New York Times Best Selling graphic novel of the same name, this Tony Award-winning musical follows lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel as she works on her latest project. Drawing on her own memories to guide her, she grapples with her past, her relationship with her father, and her dysfunctional childhood growing up in a funeral home. 

Yes, Alison Bechdel is a real person, and yes, she wrote the graphic novel that the musical is based on about her own family.

But here’s the real question. Does her name sound familiar? Some of you may be huge Alison Bechdel fans already, but for those of you who aren’t… Perhaps you’ve seen it written or heard it in passing?

If you’re still not sure, this may help. Have you ever heard of the Bechdel Test? 

Alison Bechdel has written two graphic novels, Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, and maintained a long-running comic strip called Dykes to Watch Out For. But popularizing what is now referred to as the Bechdel Test is perhaps what she is best known for.

First appearing in Dykes to Watch Out For in 1985, Alison Bechdel jokingly depicted a scenario inspired by her friend and karate training partner Liz Wallace. Dubbed “The Rule”, this comic shows two women deciding whether or not they would like to see a movie at the theater, and their subsequent conversation reveals the following set of Bechdel Test rules: 

1. The movie must have at least two women in it
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something other than a man

Sounds simple, right? The bar is so low! Oh, how I wish it were that easy. I encourage you to take a trip to Google and look up movies that do and do not pass the Bechdel Test. The answers may surprise you. For instance, both Frozen and Die Hard pass. Yes, I said Die Hard. But the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy? Not so much. Jaws and The Sixth Sense make the cut, but The Avengers, Avatar, and The Social Network all fail.

The Bechdel Test has since become a wildly popular tool in examining both female presence in a film as well as the depth of their stories. Are these women dynamic, well-rounded characters? Or are they simply there to serve the male storyline? Do they have fully realized lives, goals, and objectives? Or are they the manic pixie dream girls designed for male protagonists to pine for and romanticize without actually learning anything of meaning about them? By publishing this comic, Alison Bechdel brought this conversation into the zeitgeist, putting the pressure on movie makers and screenwriters to do better. And in some ways, they have.

Of course, as storytelling and film have evolved, other tests have emerged to continue this examination, and to up the standard for what we should be able to expect on the big screen. My personal favorite is known as the Sexy Lamp Test. Can you take a female character out of the story and replace her with a sexy lamp? Then the movie doesn’t pass! And once again, you’d be surprised at how many famous films don’t pass.

There are also several tests that are focused specifically on representation of nonwhite characters in film. For instance, the DuVernay Test, named for famous film director Ava DuVernay, sets forth the rule that, in order to pass, a film must have an actor of color who has a fully realized life with their own goals and desires, and who is not simply a background character serving the white storyline.

And while it isn’t an officially named test, the Bury Your Gays trope was popularized to refer to the vast number of films, television shows, and books that kill off their lesbian and bisexual characters. Does the lesbian character die? Then it definitely doesn’t pass this test. 

When it comes down to it, there’s a lot more to Alison Bechdel than this one cartoon strip, and you’ll see that in Fun Home, but the Bechdel Test has been referenced for almost 40 years, and it paved the way for subsequent tests, opening up conversations about identity, representation, and storytelling. Next time you make popcorn and sit down for a movie, think about each of these tests. Does the movie pass? 

And I would be remiss if I didn’t say… Fun Home passes the Bechdel Test!