Perseverance Theatre, Alaska’s premiere regional theatre, will present three titles in Juneau and Anchorage for their 2024-2025 season. Led by Artistic Director Leslie Ishii, Perseverance Theatre’s upcoming Season will bring powerful stories by, for, and of Alaska to Juneau and Anchorage. This season will feature two world premieres, a historic Broadway comedy, as well as Alaskan artists from all over the state.
Kicking off the season is the world premiere of Cold Case, by Cathy Tagnak Rexford (Iñupiaq). Winner of the 2022 National Theatre Conference Barry and Bernice Stavis Playwright’s Award, Cold Case depicts the heartbreaking story of an Iñupiaq woman in rural Alaska as she fights to recover her aunt’s body from an Anchorage morgue. This world premiere production will be directed by DeLanna Studi, citizen of Cherokee Nation and current Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles, California. Cold Case will perform in Yaa Andagan Yé (Douglas) from September 6th through September 22nd, 2024 before transferring to Dgheyaytnu (Anchorage) from October 11 through October 20, 2024.
Next up on Tlingít Aaní will be the world premiere of Ariel Estrada’s one-man show, Full Contact, which interrogates actor and writer Estrada’s experiences of heavy training in martial arts in a known New York dojo for 20 years. Estrada’s narrative interweaves the story of his late Filipino father’s immigration to the United States with Estrada’s own childhood in Sitka, Alaska and his coming-of-age as a gay man in NYC at the height of the AIDS crisis. This title will perform in Yaa Andagan Yé on the Perseverance Theatre Mainstage from December 1st through December 22nd, 2024.
Closing out the season will be The Thanksgiving Play, the Broadway comedy by previous Perseverance Theatre collaborator and 2020 MacArthur Fellow playwright Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation). This wacky story of wokeness centers around a group of four well-meaning but culturally insensitive white theater artists who attempt to create a politically correct elementary school play about the first Thanksgiving while struggling with their own biases and the lack of Native representation. The Thanksgiving Play will perform in Yaa Andagan Yé February 28th through March 16th, 2025 , and will transfer to Dgheyaytnu April 4th through April 13th, 2025.
“As our Perseverance Team continues to deeply listen and learn in-community, we have curated this season in response to the relationships and issues that surfaced with these playwrights and their/our communities,” says Artistic Director Leslie Ishii. “This is truly a season of power and the return of dear friends and esteemed colleagues to Perseverance Theatre and Alaska. Watch for important programming where we invite you in to support awareness building as this 2024-2025 season’s plays are already creating national impact”, says Ishii, who is entering her fifth season as Artistic Director at Perseverance Theatre.