Rosencrantz and Guildenstern may be dead, but local theater has a strong pulse right now. My incomplete checklist starts with three events opening on Friday, Feb. 20.
In addition to "Spirit -- 7th Fire of Alaska" noted elsewhere, there's Tom Stoppard's brilliant upside-down take on Shakespeare, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" at UAA's Mainstage, directed by David Edgecombe (8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday through March 8).
Next door, at APU's Grant Hall, Anchorage Opera is presenting a double bill of Mozart's "The Impresario" and "Mozart and Salieri" by Rimsky-Korsakov, an underestimated opera composer in my opinion. This production will feature new English lyrics linking the two works by playwright Deborah Brevoort. (8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday through March 1, except at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 28.) Tickets for all of the above are available at centertix.net.
At 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 22, at UAA's Wendy Williamson Auditorium, there'll be a screening of "Murder Gone Cold," a whodunit based on the still-unsolved murder of Anchorage's first police chief in the format of a radio play. The film has been produced for broadcast on public television. The film will be preceded by a reception and followed by a separate video in which modern crime experts discuss the case. Tickets are available at the door.
The new Glenn Massay Theater at Mat-Su College in Palmer will host its first stage show, a Colony High School production of the musical "Shrek" at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 20, and 2 and 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 21. Tickets and information at glennmassaytheater.com.
Continuing are "The Mountaintop" at Sydney Laurence and "Emotional Creature" at Cyrano's, both noted elsewhere, and "Unnecessary Farce" at Valley Performing Arts in the Machetanz Theatre in Wasilla.
Last weekend I made it to one of the final performances of "Flowers for Algernon" by the ambitious Synesthesia Artist Collective at Grant Hall. David Roger's stage version ran two and a half hours, half again as long as the 1968 Oscar-winning film based on it, "Charly," and about two and a half times longer than it takes to read the original magazine short story by Daniel Keyes. (Keyes later expanded it into a novel that added details included in the play.)
Theresa Pond directed a large cast, many of whom played multiple characters. The standouts were Gigi Lynch, equally effective as a bloodless academic, a tough yet tender-hearted bakery owner and a housewife driven to delusional (attempted) homicide; Matthew Fernandez, the most believably human of the roster in the part of a lab assistant; and 10-year-old Dayna Drury as the little sister of the main character, whose brief speech was convincingly delivered and easier to understand than some of the clipped enunciation of certain adult actors.
Jaron Carlson worked hard to make credible the transformation of Charlie, a mentally disabled man who becomes a genius after an operation. It's a difficult assignment and Carlson handled it well. However, I was disturbed by laughter from the audience when, early on, Charlie fumbles with words and situations. Humor is a separate matter from I.Q., either high or low, and there's nothing -- or should be nothing -- comical about this sci-fi morality tale. A half hour into the show Carlson had the line, "Why do people think a dumb person is funny?" There was no laughter after that.
On Monday night, Dark Winter Productions gave staged readings of four scripts by or about Alaska Natives. Participants included some pros, Irene Bedard, Brian Wecott and Ron Holmstrom. The most important offering was an excerpt from "Our Voices Will Be Heard" by Vera Starbard, due for inclusion in Perseverance Theatre's next season. The work is still pretty raw and in progress at this time, but Bedard's delivery of a soliloquy from a Tlingit mother ostracized from her village seemed to hold much potential.
Three skits, also in various stages of development as emcee Joe Bedard made clear, filled out the bill, along with a dramatic recitation of a poem by Bedard. My favorite was the most polished, Lucas Rowley's "Raven One," mainly because of Wescott's delightful rendition of a dry-as-dust space engineer dealing with a series of crises with deadpan and smartly timed delivery. Irene Bedard also recited a poem she'd written, "Seven Dreams," or rather performed it with gestures, grace and nuance. We don't often experience poetry so properly served.
Finally, there was Rachel Barton Pine's performance of the 24 Caprices for Solo Violin by Paganini, ostensibly a musical event but containing an strong element of theater, as Barton Pine broke up the series with entertaining stories and examples. She acknowledged attempting the difficult collection, even after years of practice, can come down to "hoping you hit the mark." And, as she told me earlier this month, while live performance has an electricity that recordings lack, recordings can achieve a literal perfection unlikely in live presentations.
So it was not particularly surprising or unexpected to hear the highest notes blur in Caprice No. 7 and notes in the same stratosphere hit dead on in Caprice No. 8. The audience, which mostly filled the ground floor of the Discovery Theatre, lapped it all up. Several realized that this might be the only opportunity they'd ever get to hear the full set played live.
After showing off the Caprices' "tricks," Barton Pine demonstrated some additional ones with her variations on the New Zealand national anthem. It included bowing the theme with one hand and plucking it with the other in counterpoint. Paganini would have approved.
State Fair scholarships
The Alaska State Fair in Palmer is soliciting applications for what sounds like an intriguing scholarship. Details are available at alaskastatefair.org, but the basics include supplying a written essay (1,000 words or less) or creative project in a range of formats -- audio, video, performance or visual arts, business plan, social media campaign, arts and crafts, photography, etc. -- on one of a series of topics. These include reviewing the Fair's new Economic Impact Study and recommending ways it can have a greater impact on the state and community; coming up with ways for the Fair to improve educational programming; and how one might use an Alaska State Fair booth to start a business or sell a product.
Five scholarships will be awarded between $1,500 and $500. Entries can be submitted at the website or delivered to the Alaska State Fair, 2075 Glenn Highway, Palmer, AK 99645. The deadline is April 15. You can also email the Fair's social media person, Kelly Larson, at kelly@alaskastatefair.org.
New York artist speaks
The Alaska Design Forum's next speaker is New York artist Mark Fox, whose multimedia work includes a contemporary puppet theater collaboration. Fox will speak at 7 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 23, at the Anchorage Museum, at 6 p.m. on Feb. 24 at The Blue Loon in Fairbanks and at 6 p.m. on Feb. 25 at 360 North in Juneau. General admission for the Anchorage talk is $15. Enter by the Seventh Avenue doors.
Book talk in Homer
A lot of Dave Atcheson's recent book, "Dead Reckoning, Navigating a Life on the Last Frontier, Courting Tragedy on its High Seas," takes place in or around Homer. Atcheson will present a free reading and book talk in that town at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 20, at the Kachemak Bay Branch of Kenai Peninsula College.
Basketball operas Anchorage connection
I received a press release from New York promoting a workshop performance of "Bounce: The Basketball Opera." Described as "a dramatic mix of live music, theater and basketball," it features music by Daniel Bernard Roumain and a script by Charles R. Smith, Jr. based on an idea by Grethe Barrett Holby.
But it was the name of the producer that caught my attention: Torrie Allen, former director of Anchorage Opera and present chief officer of marketing and development at Alaska Public Media, keeping his hand in the opera world long distance.
"Bounce" had the public workshop at the Jerome L. Green Performance Space in New York on Feb. 11. Given the popularity of the sport in Alaska -- there are even Yup'ik dances based on hoops -- it may eventually be a candidate for presentation in venues from Kake to Point Hope.