Tag: Drama

KSKA: August 4 at 2:45p.m. Perseverance Theatre of Juneau is bringing another full slate of plays to Anchorage this coming season. Artistic Director Art Rotch, Playwright Lucas Rowley and Anchorage General Manager Josh Lowman join Steve this week on Stage Talk to go through the line-up. LISTEN HERE

KSKA: Friday, July 14 at 2:45pm Eagle River's Alaska Fine Arts Academy is celebrating ten years of theatre and have announced their upcoming season. Executive Director Lailani Cook, celebrating the start of her second year as ED, comes on Stage Talk this week to give us an overview of what is coming up. LISTEN HERE

KSKA: Friday, June 23 at 2:45pm Twenty-five years ago, Jerry and Sandy Harper founded Cyrano's Theatre Company located at the corner of 4th Avenue and D Street in downtown Anchorage. This summer, the Board of Directors announced that the company will be moving to the former Out North Contemporary Art House located on Debarr Street midway between midtown and east Anchorage. This week on Stage Talk, Cyrano's Producing Artistic Director Teresa Pond and Board Member Jay Burns drop by to tell us about all the new and exciting opportunities this will bring to the company as well as a few fond memories of the old space. LISTEN HERE

KSKA: Friday, June 2 at 2:45p.m. Every summer Stage Talk likes to highlight upcoming seasons and this week we begin by featuring Anchorage Community Theatre. Executive Director Sara Athans drops by to give us a report on last year's season as well as a preview into next year's. LISTEN HERE

KSKA: Friday, April 28 at 2:45pm Though a child may be taught the concept of what is right and what is wrong, it is only through life's specific experiences that she starts to understand what those concepts really mean and how they can affect her and loved ones around her. Such is the story of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird as adapted to the stage by Christopher Sergel and presented by Perseverance Theatre in the Discovery Theatre. Actors Keith McCoy ("Tom Robbins"), Theo Houck ("Dill") and Seth Coppens ("Scout") join host Steve Hunt this week on Stage Talk. To Kill a Mockingbird opens April 28th and runs through May 7th. LISTEN HERE

KSKA: Friday, April 21 at 2:45pm In 1980, Robert Pond, candidate for Master of Arts degree in Theatre Arts at Portland State University presented his thesis: The History of Community Theatre in Anchorage, Alaska 1946-1976. Today, as he is preparing that thesis for a book, he drops by Stage Talk to chat about his personal recollections and experiences from his long career of producing theatre. Bob is one of the most recognized figures in Anchorage theatre and currently is one of the co-founders of RKP Productions which is planning on producing two Menotti operas later this year. LISTEN HERE

KSKA: Friday, April 7 at 2:45pm During KSKA's Spring Fund Drive, Stage Talk goes to great lengths... or distances to bring exciting guests to the show. In this case we go to Australia (via Skype) to talk to playwright Timothy Daly about the premier of his play, The Afterlife of J. Edgar Hoover being produced by RKP Productions in association with Cyrano's Theatre Company. Joining Timothy in the studio are Director and Producer Dick Reichman and Producer Audrey Weltman Kelly. The Afterlife of J. Edgar Hoover performs at Cyrano's Theatre Company April 7th through the 23rd. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, March 31 at 2:45pm Julie Kramer's stage adaptation of Rona Jaffee's ground breaking novel The Best of Everything follows the lives of five women working for a Manhattan publishing firm in the early 1950s and is currently being performed at Anchorage Community Theatre (until April 9th.) Uncannily timely today, this play examines the lives of these women trying to make it in the business world while balancing personal lives and relationships. This week Director Krista Schwarting and actors Kimberly Allely and R. Scott Cantrell drop by the studio to talk about the play on Stage Talk. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, March 24 at 2:45pm Often considered the greatest play written in the English language, Shakespeare's Hamlet is as complicated it its psychological examination of the particular characters as it is enlightening of the human spirit. TBA Theatre is presenting this timeless work at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium on the campus of UAA March 24th through April 2nd and two of the actors, Wayne Mitchell and Jessica Faust drop by Stage Talk this week to let us know how they are approaching the play. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, March 10 at 2:45pm Cyrano's Theatre Company is presenting Noel Coward's classic Comedy of Manners, Private Lives about a divorced couple, now on honeymoons with their new spouses, who meet and discover that they are still attracted to each other. Director Teresa Pond and actors Frank Delaney and Stefanie Suydam drop by Stage Talk this week to talk about how this play is still as "fantastically funny" as it was back when it was first produced in 1930. Private Lives runs March 10 through April 2 at Cyrano's Theatre Company. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, March 3 at 2:45pm A young 17-year old Tlingit leaves Juneau to go to his grandparents' remote village to begin a journey into himself and his culture is the subject of Frank Henry Kaash Katasse's play They Don't Talk Back being produced by Perseverance Theatre and performing in the Sydney Laurence Theatre March 3rd through the 12th. Skyler Ray-Benson Davis, who plays the young "Nick", stops by the studio this week along with Anchorage General Manager Josh Lowman to talk about among other things Skyler's own journey as a young Tlingit man who learned a lot about his own culture by performing in this exciting new play.

KSKA: Friday, February 24 at 2:45pm. Pre-Moth Radio Hour, This American Life and even Alaska's own Arctic Entries, author Studs Terkel took tape recorder in hand to interview real people doing real jobs across the country and then published a book about the people he met. Later, renowned composer Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin) collaborated with several other composers and song writers (James Taylor, Craig Carnelia, etc.) to bring that book to the stage in the form of the musical Working which is being presented by the University of Alaska Anchorage Department of Theatre and Dance. In their last weekend (Feb 24-26), Director Nova Cunningham and two of the actors from the show, Jacob Marforth and Jordan Crenshaw drop by Stage Talk this week to give us some background on all of these remarkable people. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, February 10 at 2:45pm Anchorage Opera Company is presenting Tom Cipullo's opera Glory Denied based on the true story of the longest held American captive during the Vietnam War and what happens with his life when he returns. Stage Director Helena Binder and Conductor Douglas Kinney Frost drop by the studio this week to tell us about their unique concept of how they have chosen to present this moving story. Glory Denied performs in the Sydney Laurence Theatre starting February 10th and going through the 18th. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, January 27 at 2:45pm Unlike many of the area performing arts groups whose seasons go from fall to spring, Cyrano's Theatre Company's season runs from January through December. This week on Stage Talk Producing Artistic Director Teresa K. Pond drops by to give us a preview of what's in store.

LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, January 20 at 2:45pm. Two people whose focus on life is through money meet. What is real and what is not? What is intangible and what has actual value? Cyrano's Theatre Company's Resident Playwright Dick Reichman's Money, which addresses many of these topics, comes back to Cyrano's in collaboration with RKP Productions to run January 20 through February 12. David Haynes and Becca Mahar drop by Stage Talk this week to talk about their characters, the play and the 25th anniversary of Cyrano's.

LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, January 13 at 2:45pm The Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Conductor/Maestro Randy Fleischer, brings back its annual collaboration between music and film as it performs the original soundtracks to two of Charlie Chaplin's more popular films, The Kid and The Idle Class while the films are shown. Fleischer and Education Coordinator Susan Windgrove-Reed come by Stage Talk today to give some background on Chaplin and how Fleischer works to combine the music with the films during the showings. Both films, along with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra perform Saturday at 8pm in the Atwood Concert Hall. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, January 6 at 2:45pm Perseverance Theatre starts off the new year with Hold These Truths, a one-man show about Gordon Hirabayashi, the son of Japanese immigrants who was ordered to report to an interment camp outside of Seattle at the start of World War II and how he resisted. Director Leslie Ishii and Actor Greg Watanabe engage in a captivating conversation this week on Stage Talk. The play runs January 6-15 in the Sydney Laurence Theatre and on Sunday, January 7th, the playwright Jeanne Sakata will join the company and audience in a public talk-back. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, December 16 at 2:45pm UAA Department of Music and Anchorage Opera have teamed up again under the leadership of Associate Professor Mari Hahn to present two one-act operas, Savitri by Gustav Holst and Dr. Miracle by Georges Bizet, both performing Friday, 12/16 through Sunday 12/18 in the UAA Fine Arts Building Recital Hall. Hahn, who rewrote both librettos and who directed both productions brings two of the performers, Linda Porter and Zaide Manzano to Stage Talk today. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, November 11 at 2:45pm Allison Gregory's "meta-theatre" play Not Medea mixes modern motherhood with the Greek myth of Medea and tosses in some audience participation as well. And, as part the National New Play Network Rolling World Premier, Perseverance Theatre brings it to life this week at the Sydney Laurence Theatre (playing November 11-20). Director Tom Robenolt, Actor Shelly Virginia and Anchorage Perseverance Theatre General Manager Josh Lowman drop by the studio this week to tell us all about it. LISTEN NOW

KSKA: Friday, November 4 at 2:45pm The University of Alaska Anchorage Department of Theatre and Dance brings to life a play about a lot of people getting killed in Agatha Christie's classic murder mystery, And Then There Were None. Now in their second (and last) week of performance, Director Dr. Brian Cook along with actors LisaMarie Castro and Isaac Kumpula drop by the studio this week to talk about the play as well as the educational benefits Ms. Castro has received by using the play as the focus of her senior project. LISTEN NOW