The Juneau Arts and Humanities Council is producing a theater project to put under-represented voices on stage. The working title is the “Juneau Histories Theater Project.”
The council is looking for individuals, with a focus on Tlingit and Haida people, to workshop and share and their life experiences for performance in March.
This is video is from a similar performance in Lawrence, Kansas.
The project’s community liaison Frank Henry Kaash Katasse teamed up with fellow Juneau artist Ryan Conarro and the New York-based Ping Chong and Company, a theater company known for working with under-represented communities.
“I know they have done some with Islamic people living in America. They’ve done some with transgender people. They’ve gone to reservations. They did one up in, I think, in the Kuskokwim last year interviewing some Yupik people,” Katasse said. “They travel to different communities and they want people to tell their stories.”
Juneau’s production would be the latest in Ping Chong and Company’s “Undesirable Elements” series.
“One of the themes that we’re focusing on or thinking about is the Old Indian Village, the Willoughby District, in downtown Juneau,” Katasse said.
In Juneau, Katasse, Conarro and theater founder Ping Chong himself, will choose five stories and their tellers, conduct additional interviews, help script those stories, and add theatrical elements.
“One of my missions in life is to get people up on stage,” Katasse said. “It’s what I do through Juneau Douglas Little Theatre, it’s what I like here at Perseverance, and this is a great opportunity for people to get up on stage in a very low stress environment. They have the script right in front of them that they have to read, they’re telling their own stories.”
Katasse and company note that this project is open to more than Alaska Native people.
The group also is interested in hearing experiences relating to the Juneau Arts and Culture Center itself, formerly the National Guard Armory, the gold rush, statehood, fishing and tourism, military and other cultural groups such as Filipino and Pacific Islander communities.
Interested people must be willing to get on stage, and fill out an application by Jan. 10.
