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“The Blue Bear” Opens in Anchorage

Juneau-based Preservation Theatre, the largest and most acclaimed theater company in Alaska, launches its first-ever Anchorage season this weekend with “The Blue Bear.” The play chronicles the friendship and adventures of Juneau wilderness guide Lynn Schooler and renowned Japanese wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino.

PT’s production of “The Blue Bear” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, February 10 and 11, and at 4 p.m. on Sunday February 12. Performances continue next weekend with shows again on Friday and Saturday (February 17 and 18) at 7:30 p.m. A Sunday matinee on February 19 begins at 2 p.m. 

For tickets click here.

“The Blue Bear” is presented in conjunction with the Anchorage Concert Association and is based on Schooler’s 2002 book, The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship, Tragedy and Survival in the Alaskan Wilderness. The Alaska Humanities Forum supported PT’s adaption of the book. “The Blue Bear” debuted last year in Juneau.

Here’s a description of the play from the Anchorage Concert Association:

Lynn Schooler was guiding in Juneau when he met Japanese photographer, Michio Hoshino. Both loved writing, photography, and Alaska's wilderness, and searched to find and photograph the rare glacier bear. Before they could find a blue bear, Hoshino was tragically killed by a 700-pound grizzly, and Schooler dedicated himself to getting their photograph to honor his friend. THE BLUE BEAR stages Schooler's achingly intimate portrait of a remarkable friendship, and combines Schooler's words with Hoshino's photographs in a stunning production.

For more background on the subject matter and creative process of “The Blue Bear,” click here.

A scene from "The Blue Bear."

"Blue Bear" To Launch Perseverance Theatre's Debut Anchorage Season

After 32 years in Juneau, Perseverance Theatre, (PT) is expanding its season to Anchorage in 2012 by remounting two well-received productions from its most recent season, “The Blue Bear” and “A Raisin in the Sun.”

Both offerings will be presented at the Sydney Laurence Theatre at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.

PT is Alaska’s largest and most acclaimed professional theatre company. Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “How I Learned to Drive" was written while she was a PT artist in residence. More than 50 new plays have debuted on its stages.

Presented in conjunction with the Anchorage Concert Association, “The Blue Bear,” which debuted earlier this year in Juneau, will feature its original cast in Anchorage next February. Lorraine Hasberry’s landmark 1959 play “A Raisin in the Sun” will follow in April 2012.

PT’s artistic director, Art Rotch, is excited to bring the shows before a new audience. “We turned 30 a couple of years ago and we had a change in leadership. It was time to take stock, look all the way back and then look forward more than a few years,” Rotch says. “To achieve our long term vision we needed to stretch and grow a little bit and reach more Alaska audiences.”

With support from the Alaska Humanities Forum, “The Blue Bear” was adapted from author Lynn Schooler’s 2002 book The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship, Tragedy and Survival in the Alaskan Wilderness. It chronicles Schooler’s friendship with Japanese wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino and their quest to find and photograph the elusive glacier bear.

Time Immemorial Tour Closes Out With Four Anchorage Shows

A touring production of Time Immemorial, a play co-written by Yup’ik storyteller Jack Dalton and Inupiaq performance artist, playwright and rapper Allison Warden, winds up in Anchorage later this week with four shows at the Sydney Laurence Theater in collaboration with Out North Contemporary Art House.

Time Immemorial has garnered national acclaim since it was originally produced in 2009 at Cyrano’s Theatre Company in Anchorage as part of a program funded by the Alaska Humanities Forum.

A recent Arctic Sounder article summarized the plot: “It is the story of Miti and Tulu [Eagle and Raven], who are two souls born into different relationships through many different lifetimes.”

One lifetime they are brother and sister, another they are elder and child, and so on. These two souls interact through all of Alaskan Native history, and together they weave a beautiful story of our people moving forward through time, through change and retaining our strength and identity.

In a cover story profile of Dalton published last week in the Anchorage Press, he credited Warden with inspiring the project: “The [original] idea was to write a play about Alaska Statehood, and when I mentioned this to Allison, she said, ‘Well, statehood for Natives is just a blip in our history. We've been here for 10,000 years, so 50 years is hardly anything," Dalton says. "At that point I said, ‘Would you like to help me write this play?'"

 Dalton and Warden in Time Immemorial. Jamie Lang Photography.

After a successful first run, Time Immemorial was selected to undergo a rigorous dramaturgical process with Native Voices at the Autry in San Diego last spring and summer. The workshop led to substantial revisions, all of them positive, says Dalton.

“The last scene in the play used to be 12 minutes long; now it’s two minutes long,” Dalton said in a recent interview in the Alaska Humanities Forum offices. “They told us, ‘You have to trust your audience; your audience is smarter than you think. They get it.’ So instead of having the last scene be a complete retelling of the first scene, just from different points of view, we chopped it down to the essentials, and it’s much, much better.”

A full equity production of Time Immemorial is scheduled to open in Los Angeles next March, starring notable Hawaiian television and movie actor Kalani Queypo (Bones, Nurse Jackie, The New World) as Raven.

Dalton and Warden, who starred in the original 2009 production as Raven and Eagle, respectively, will reprise their roles for the Anchorage shows in what may be the final time they share a stage, at least in Time Immemorial.

 “Our careers are going strong and another collaboration such as this will be difficult,” Warden told the Arctic Sounder. “We are the writers and the original actors. Seeing us on stage together like this is a rare opportunity."

SHOW & TICKETS INFO:

Time Immemorial is scheduled to be performed in the Sydney Laurence Theatre April 21-23 at 8 p.m. and April 24 at 6 p.m.

Tickets are $20, available at www.centertix.net, or by calling 263-ARTS.