Homer Tribune » Theater

Homer’s production turns 21: Magic year for Nutcracker Ballet

Newsroom — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:12:11 +0000

It takes a town and more than 2 decades to keep the beloved script moving
By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune
When the curtain opens on this year’s Nutcracker Ballet, young Clara, played by Alyssa VanLiere, isn’t alone in her daydreams. Her younger brother, Fritz, played by Flynn Bloom, is marching with tin soldiers and generally annoying his highly imaginative, angelic sister.
In this 21st year of the Homer production of the Nutcracker Ballet, the plot changes slightly – as it has in most other years. However, one detail remains the same: it takes dozens of talented and committed Homer youth to stage this production. Many of them are seasoned actors and dancers by now, who have been devoted to this timeless classic since they were in elementary school.
The Nutcracker Ballet, already 109 years old, takes on new breadth each year by keeping the script in movement, said Director Jill Berryman. It’s not too much to detract from Alexandre Dumas’ original adaptation of the story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” by E.T.A. Hoffman, but it’s enough to keep it fresh.
“It’s like that saying, ‘it kind of depends on making the pie’ – you see the kids and see where their abilities are, and then you go from there,” Berryman said. “We come together a lot with the costumes. There’s a lot going into deciding which new country we will visit this year.”
Berryman – working with local young people she has often known since they first learned the Nutcracker nuances of being mice and lambs – has been doing this all 21 years of the production in Homer.
In fact, she’s who started it all.

HOMER TRIBUNE/Sean Pearson - Rhoslynn Jennings leaps in her performance during the Nutcracker Ballet dress rehearsal on Monday night at Homer High School.

The musical stays fresh for her every year by “changing it out,” she said. “The kids grow up and change. It’s really nice to have them in different roles,” she said. “(And) we picked up tunes (this year) from Paris Boulevard – a style of music you hear when you stroll down the boulevard in Paris.”
Homer High School seniors Rhoslyn Jennings and Morgan Edminster will be performing for their 10th year straight.
“They’ve been with this since they were in the second grade, and have just really risen to the top,” Berryman said.
Another long-standing performer is Willy Dunne, who takes the stage as Uncle Drosselmeyer in this year’s production. Dunne, a fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, first started in the production with his daughter, Jenny, when she was five or six years old. Now she is a sophomore at the University of Washington.
“I’ve watched a couple of generations grow up with the Nutcracker,” Dunne said. “We first saw it in 1989 when Jenny was just a baby. When she was a few years old, she dreamed of being in it, and started out as a mouse. Then she progressed to a lamb, and a jester, and one year she was an oriental dancer.”

HOMER TRIBUNE/Sean Pearson - Jesters and monkeys fill the stage as part of the 21st-annual production of Homer's Nutcracker.

This year, as an “empty-nester,” Dunne said he has especially enjoyed the interactions with the Nutcracker children. In his role as uncle, he allows the full-blown child within to emerge.
“I feel like I am just a big kid myself. I hope I never grow up,” Dunne said. “I always thought of (Uncle Drosselmeyer) as a mysterious uncle who really connects with the children and doesn’t interact with the adults much. He’s about the fun and mystery of Christmas.”
Dunne agreed that each Nutcracker ends up being different from the last by adding new twists.
“Jill is really good at throwing in new things so that it’s never stale,” he said. “Each year, you see new energy from different kids. She is always open to suggestions from them, and open to the creative process.”
While hesitant to give too much of this year’s play away, Dunne hinted that Uncle Drosselmeyer leaves Austria and goes to America this time to learn musical traditions from people in Appalachia.
Even productions in New York or other major American cities have nothing over the local production. The Homeric ballet is lit by professional lighting artist Mandy Ringer, who said she can compare it to other Nutcracker performances she has worked on.

HOMER TRIBUNE/Sean Pearson - A juggling jester livens things up during the dream sequence of the Nutcracker.

“She runs four theaters in New York City,” Berryman said. “A friend sent her to us and she fell in love with Homer and all of us. We have hand-painted murals by these artists, and she was telling me that there was this one production (of the Nutcracker) that had card board trees” in New York.
It apparently takes the whole town to produce the Nutcracker. About 75 people are actors or dancers, 12 of those adults. Another 25 people provide technical assistance and do backstage work. It takes those who act, or dance, and those that can feed them. Berryman said the tired, hungry rehearsers were fed duck soup the other night and homemade bread from Two Sisters Bakery, one of the faithful who keep showing up with sustenance so the show can go on.

‘Thank You Dance’ comes to Homer

Newsroom — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:09:30 +0000

Que’Ana Bar at Clam Gulch inspires a contemporary dance performance

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

Photo provided - Emily Johnson explores issues of displacement through a series of theatre pieces entitled “The Thank You Bar.” The pieces feature Johnson in contemporary dance, and will be performed at the Bunnell Street Gallery Oct. 16, 17 and 18.

On the Sterling Highway, near Clam Gulch, an old-fashioned bar made of logs carries a Yup’ik name that’s spelled wrong; mostly to help people pronounce it correctly: Que’Ana Bar.
It means “thank you,” and is the place resting fitfully in the memory of a young woman who visited her grandparents there for many years.
As Emily Johnson grew up, she attended Thanksgivings and Sunday dinners there, and helped process salmon from the family’s nearby setnetting site. In these activities, Johnson was influenced by her Yup’ik grandmother, Hannah Laraux Stormo, who was born in the Kuskokwim region.
“Going to Grandma’s house was going to the Que’Ana Bar,” Johnson said. “It holds so many of my memories. It had one of those big, old jukeboxes that had all this country music. That is the soundtrack to my memories. In a dream, you get pieces and parts and feelings that are larger than life.”
Johnson, now 33, lives in Minneapolis and runs a dance theatre called Catalyst. She has produced a theatre piece called, “The Thank You Bar,” which explores layers of memory and themes of displacement. She is traveling to Homer to perform it Oct. 16-17. This week, the show – as well as the exhibit, “This is Displacement” – are at Out North Theatre in Anchorage.

Photo provided

Being far from home, away from her family and not able to pursue her Native customs gave Johnson plenty of fodder for thoughts about being displaced.
“There are emotional repercussions in displacement, whether it’s from the self or imposed by an outside force,” Johnson said Thursday.
“I think of it as something that every creature knows something about. When we build something or walk somewhere else, we are always creating displacement.”
Though Johnson loves to come home and spends twice yearly visits with her family, Minneapolis is where she can do her performance work.
And, she enjoys the urban setting.
“It’s a strongly supportive city for contemporary dance and experimental theatre,” she explained. “And my husband is a musician.”
Johnson said she may be able to move back to Alaska if she can find a way to continue her work here, adding that she misses her family, “ … and the land itself.”
Johnson’s parents and two brothers live with their families in Sterling, Soldotna and Kenai. Sometimes she brings her entire dance company home with her.
“I have a very supportive family,” Johnson said. “In 2004, we came here and rehearsed in my parents’ yard. We sort of made up this residency program, and my family was cooking dinners while we rehearsed.”
According to Johnson, her Grandma Hannah will be at her opening night in Anchorage. It will be the first time she has seen the show.
“The Thank You Bar” is a piece designed for a small, intimate audience, which is why Bunnell provides such a “great venue.”
Johnson resists describing the narrative, saying she wants people to experience it fresh.
“The dancing happens all around you – the dancing encompasses the architecture of the building,” she explained. “We’re used to looking at these places we build as if it is an end to our vision. We stop thinking of what used to be here, what was here before we came and what will it be like in the future. We get stuck in our architecture as being a solid thing.”
Johnson performs in the context of four separate stories about growing up at the Que’Ana Bar. She said the purpose of the performance is to – for one hour – “think about where they live in a different way perhaps; a way they haven’t thought of before.”
Her costume includes a beaded headpiece created by another displaced Yup’ik woman, Karen Beaver of Bethel. Beaver now lives in North Dakota, but is coming home for the show.
“I just love it that we are creating these expanding circles of people,” Johnson said.
While there are some opportunities to learn the Yup’ik language far from home, Johnson said it is not easy to do it that way. She made tapes of her grandmother’s talk and uses books, foreshadowing a possible theme of language in the displacement process as her next focus.
“As I learn more about the Yup’ik world view through language, themes of displacement come out – albeit in an abstracted way – in The Thank You Bar,” she said.

Cyrano’s brings ‘The Big One’ to Homer

Newsroom — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:29:23 +0000

Play about oil spill explores people involved in massive tragedy

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

Photo by Jamie Lang - Rick Barreras plays Captain Joe Hazelwood in the play, “The Big One” to be performed this weekend in Homer.

A lot of people misattribute the reason for why the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill happened.
“It wasn’t really simply because Captain Hazelwood was drunk or because Exxon officials were bastards,” said playwright Dick Reichman. “There is much more to it than that; there’s more mystery to it. You have to try to delve into the industry’s need to cut corners and pursue profits to find the larger understanding.”
“The Big One: A Chronicle of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill,” is a two-hour play written by Reichman that travels to Homer this weekend for a performance that promises good history and good theatre. The Cyrano’s Theatre troupe of 10 actors with all their props arrive in Homer to perform the play, hosted by Pier One Theatre’s Lance Petersen. So far, the show has played to full houses at Cyrano’s in Anchorage since opening Sept. 11.
Sandy Harper, director at Cyrano’s, said audiences linger for discussions following the play.
While the idea of producing a play on the spill didn’t sound like a good theatre bet at first, Reichman said he wanted to write it anyway as an exploration into the complexity of corporate versus human values.
“The play is the opener for a conversation they (audiences) have wanted to have, and this presented on opportunity for them to do it,” Reichman said. “It explores the question of whether a for-profit operation can keep us safe if it is always cutting costs and concerned about profits.”
The play is commemorative on two levels: Cyrano’s Theatre is focusing on the 50th anniversary of statehood in a series of plays produced this season, and it was written as part of the 20th anniversary of the spill. Playwright Reichman had moved to Valdez in 1987 and was working as a bartender at the time of the spill. He worked on a clean-up crew following the spill. Then, he moved on to public radio shortly after that, “and spent the next 10 years talking about it.”
The play begins on the night of the spill, set on the giant oil tanker run aground on Bligh Reef. Dialogue and acted scenes are regularly accompanied by short narratives explaining court findings, science or curiosities, like the fact that, unlike other ships, tankers tend to be referred to as “he.”
“Despite the fact that we know how this ends,” wrote reviewer Mike Dunham, “from start to finish, the theatricality is tautly dramatic, even melodramatic; on the other hand, any accurate depiction of the spill must reflect the extreme emotions and frantic horror that spread as people realized the scope of the problem.”
Characters depicted in the play include Rick Barreras as Captain Joe Hazelwood, Steven Hunt as Exxon shipping head Frank Iarossi, Nava Sarracino as activist fisherperson Riki Ott and Erika Johnson as Dottie – a party girl who takes on the unhealthy job of cleaning beaches because she needs the money.
Reichman explores the psyches of these individuals and, to a lesser extent, the secondary characters, and reveals them not as evil, but as limited, Dunham wrote.
“Mistakes sneak up on them, they see the future and are helpless to stop it, they try to direct actions without having full knowledge of ramifications or options, they walk in the dark the way most of us do most of the time. The audience does not forgive, but may discover a little sympathy.”
Reichman said he is looking forward to Homer’s reception of his play. A discussion likely will follow as an opportunity for patrons to impart some of their own perceptions and experiences.

Musical comedy caps Pier One season

Tribune Moderator — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:07:59 +0000

‘Hedwig’ leaves audiences anything but angry

By Randi Somers
Homer Tribune

HOMER TRIBUNE/Randi Somers - Atz Lee Kilcher as Hedwig (RIGHT), and producer Kathleen Gustafson (LEFT) as Hedwig’s husband, harmonize in an earlier performance this season.

Wrapping up the summer season with smiles and songs, Pier One Theatre brings the off-Broadway hit musical, “Hedwig and The Angry Inch” to audiences beginning this Friday, and running through the Labor Day Weekend.
The comedy tells the story of Hedwig – an “internationally ignored” rock singer – searches for love and stardom while dealing with a botched sex change.
Born a boy in West Berlin, Hedwig has surgery to become a woman in order to marry an American soldier and escape to freedom.
As Hedwig, the gender-confused escapee from behind the Berlin Wall, Atz Lee Kilcher turns in a performance worthy of an OBIE (Off-Broadway Award).
In addition to directing the musical, Kathleen Gustafson also plays the role of Hedwig’s husband, Yatzack, providing harmony for some of Kilcher’s vocals.
Although Hedwig escaped from Berlin, she can’t elude her fate, finding herself divorced and abandoned in a trailer park in Kansas.
But she has plenty of talent and forms a rock band. There, she falls in love with her protege, Tommy Gnosis, who eventually leaves her, stealing her songs and parlaying the music and her training into a very successful singing career.
Hedwig, with her band, “The Angry Inch,” haunts Tommy on his tours, performing in restaurants for surprised diners and a few devoted fans. The Angry Inch band features Jane Ferman on keyboard, Jake Stultz on lead guitar, Ben Gerhard on bass, Matt Farnsworth on drums and Irene Saxton on rhythm guitar.
Through songs and flashbacks, Hedwig tells her life story while touring strip-mall seafood restaurants, borrowing on her past connection with Gnosis for celebrity.
As befits a musical comedy, this one has a happy ending as Hedwig eventually finds true love and resolves her identity uncertainty.
While the play has been produced in several venues around Homer this summer, those who missed it, as well as those who would like to see it again – are expected to pack the little theatre on the Homer Spit for the season’s final weekends.
In the title role, Kilcher, better known for his musical performances than acting, impresses with his versatility and talent during a non-stop tour de force at the microphone.
Written by John Cameron Mitchell with lyrics by Stephen Trask, the play was originally produced in Off-Broadway clubs in New York City as a cabaret-style play.
Combining Hedwig’s monologues with songs that range from power rock ballads to rockabilly, the musical sketches the history of rock ‘n roll in America while exploring the dilemma of a man who hasn’t quite become a woman.
Gustafson uses rear projection of images produced by video artists Kevin Co and Kathy Brennan to illustrate the story.
Pier One Artistic Director Lance Petersen said that, due to the adult content, audience members must be 18 or older, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.

In a cave … in the rain

Tribune Moderator — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:11:05 +0000

Hedwig dress rehearsal wows Halibut Cove audience

By Randi Somers
Homer Tribune

HOMER TRIBUNE/Randi Somers - Director Kathleen Gustafson (left) steps in to provide harmony as Hedwig (Atz Lee Kilcher) polishes up his performance at Pier One on Aug. 28.

In its final “Off-Pier One” performance, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” traveled to Halibut Cove last week to entertain a wet, but cozy audience on the deck of the Saltry Restaurant.
While the troupe has been performing in various venues around Homer for much of the summer, the Halibut Cove evening was billed as a “dress rehearsal.” And “dress” was certainly the appropriate term for the one-man show, starring Atz Lee Kilcher.
Kilcher vamped through the performance wearing a short dress, which ripped away later during the show to reveal an even skimpier skirt. (He later flipped up the hem of his skirt to reveal street-appropriate shorts.)
The remainder of the troupe – the band – was generally out of the spotlight, with the exception of director Kathleen Gustafson. Gustafson doubled as Hedwig’s husband, singing harmony in drab blue coveralls that sharply contrasted with Hedwig’s revealing dresses and gaudy blonde and pink wigs.
“We’re performing in a cave in the rain,” Gustafson joked.
The players were sheltered by the roof over part of the Saltry deck, but much of the audience soaked up the rain right along with the humor of the play. They included a busload of senior citizens from the Kenai area, who seemed to revel in the adventure – as well as the performance – which some might consider slightly risque.
Before dining on the deck, out-of-state visitors wandered the island, soaking up the nature, the artistry and a few intermittent showers in the bounty across the Bay. They didn’t have to go far for beauty, as the Saltry itself is a work of art, with window paintings remaining from their pirate celebration, ceramic works, tiled table tops and bathroom murals.
Traveling to Halibut Cove on the Danny J is always an artistic adventure. On this trip, Captain Tammy Barnette obligingly circled a swimming otter and puffins for the mostly local camera-toting passengers. The sea and winds were flat calm and the rain in abeyance during the trip across the Bay. The return trip, however, found passengers donning bright yellow rain ponchos distributed by crew Elsa Bishop.
The dress rehearsal of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” served as an appetizer (as delicious as the delectable seafood specialties for which the Saltry is famous) for the on-stage performance at Pier One Theatre scheduled to open Aug. 28.

Pier One takes a turn for the serious

Tribune Moderator — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:35:09 +0000

‘Hit and Run’ dramatizes accident backlash

By Randi Somers
Homer Tribune

HOMER TRIBUNE/Randi Somers - Dr. Steven (Ken Lanfield), Officer Jackson (Cody Gains), Robert (Peter Sheppard) and his wife (Leeza Mastre) examine clues.

Unlike the more lighthearted fare featured earlier this summer, Pier One Theatre’s opening of “Hit and Run” this Friday explores the grief and guilt associated with a tragic accident involving a young boy. The play explores the repercussions of the accident on the driver, his family and associates in a serious drama that could be classified as a tragedy.
Driving home in a dense fog after taking his secretary to dinner, Robert (Peter Sheppard), accidentally hits a boy on a bicycle. And – although the outing with his co-worker was innocent – Robert doesn’t admit to his “crime” because his secretary is engaged to a very jealous man and she fears he will assume she is having an affair with her boss.
Conflicts and revelations throughout the play are bound to keep audiences keenly attentive and trying to guess what comes next.
With a mostly young cast and a young director, Marc Oliver, the play was shaping up nicely in rehearsal last week with Pier One Artistic Director Lance Petersen providing back-up coaching.
The players, except Lanfield who is a veteran of theater in Homer, are between the ages of 14 and 21, and director Oliver is 18.
Asked about his theater background, Oliver said he was heavily involved in the drama, debate and forensics program throughout high school here, as well as with Pier One Youth Theatre.
Oliver has been in several Pier One shows over the years, including ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at the beginning of the season. He also worked with Pier One and the DDF team in May, directing the play “Mixed Nuts,” and said he has been directing an independent film project over this summer called “Edge.”
“Hit and Run” is the second play he has directed.
“I stumbled on this play in the spring when I was going through the high school’s library of plays, and I really couldn’t put it down,” Oliver explained. “The script is really gripping. And I would definitely call this the darkest, most powerful play that’s been put on this summer.”
It’s also the first tragedy Pier One has produced in a few years.
“As for challenges, I’ve really only worked with comedy and light drama up until this play, so working with a tragedy has been a completely different dynamic,” he explained. “It has required an energy completely different from lighter fare. It is very engaging in a different way than the funny stuff.”
During rehearsals, Oliver coached actors on several aspects of their staging, including pause and pacing.
“It’s quite opposite of comedy,” he told them. “A lot can be expressed in a longer pause.”
“Hit and Run” was written by Mary Oldham (not the local resident). It will run this weekend and next at Pier One Theatre on the Homer Spit.

The power of Pier One’s youth

Tribune Moderator — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:36:52 +0000

Theatre stages 3 plays

By Randi Somers
Homer Tribune

HOMER TRIBUNE/Randi Somers - Summer may be a great break from the school year for young people, but Pier One Theatre youth are hard at work polishing their thespian skills.

What kind of power could induce young people to sharpen pencils, slide into desks and start taking tests during their summer vacation?
Obviously, it’s the power of Pier One’s Youth Theatre program.
Homer’s youth grab the spotlight at Pier One for the next two weekends with three short plays under the direction of Taneeka Hansen.
“Testing, Testing” by Alan Haehnel, spoofs high school testing practices and procedures from the viewpoints of winners and losers. The performance consists of two short, one-act plays.
The first play, “High Stakes,” places the top student in the classroom under extreme stress with the teacher and students conspiring to disrupt her concentration during testing. She endures and finishes the test despite a roomful of abusive distractors. Although the actual purpose of the torment is not expressed until the end of the play, one student speculates that she is being tested for some kind of CIA work.
“Wendy’s Tale” explores testing from another view. This play focuses on one student who describes herself as someone who “doesn’t test well.” And while a surprise ending will leave audiences smiling, Director Hansen and her assistant Leeza Mastre agreed that it is best left up to the audience to interpret the underlying meanings of each of the plays.
Doug Rand’s “Lights Out,” explores the big bang theory and other important questions from the standpoint of three young people whose beauty potion production is interrupted by a power outage.
Their wait for electric service to resume evolves into a discussion that explores everything from solar flares to Freemasons as the source of the problem.
In essence, the “lights out” effectively turn “lights on” in their heads, causing them to investigate serious universal questions.
The show opens Friday, and continues through Aug. 2 and again Thursday through Saturday next weekend.