Announcing Perseverance Theatre's 40th Season!

Perseverance Theatre is pleased to announce its 40th season, filled with classics, comedies, a classic musical, and exciting new work by and for Alaskans. This season brings characters from a wide range of backgrounds and places. Journey with us from the arctic in Whale Song to New York City in Guys and Dolls, to New England in Our Town, and London in A Christmas Carol (Anchorage), with stops in a contemporary high school in Teenage Dick, a research expedition into the Northwest Passage in Franklin, and 19th century Germany in Steve Martin's hilarious adaptation, The Underpants (Juneau). Subscriptions are now available to the full season at ptalaska.org.

Kicking off Perseverance Theatre's 40 years of theatre making is Snow Child, based on the novel by Eowyn Ivey. This special project is a co-production by Arena Stage, and is in very limited engagement in Anchorage May 25-27, and in Juneau, June 9-10. Perseverance Theatre founder Molly Smith is directing Snow Child, and will help us celebrate this very special start to our 40th anniversary celebration. Snow Child is written by John Strand with music by Bob Banghart and Georgia Stitt, and lyrics by Georgia Stitt.

New and renewing subscribers can now get the best prices and seat selections by calling visiting ptalaska.org/subscriptions or calling the Perseverance Theatre box office at 907-463-TIXS.

About the 2018-2019 Season

Whale Song
Love, destiny, and prophecy
BY CATHY TAGNAK REXFORD
World Premiere

Soon after a young baby is born, her parents learn she has an unusual destiny. In order to save the earth's population of bowhead whales, she will train her whole life for the honor of someday marrying a whale, leaving humanity, and spending her adult life with her new mate. Torn between teenage rebellion, young love, and her innate desire to fulfill her prophecy, she is witness to the near-end of a species and the heartbreak that comes with doing the right thing. Cathy Tagnak Rexford is an Inupiaq playwright and a member of the Perseverance Theatre Playwright's Circle.

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Our Town
Our Town is your town.
BY Thornton Wilder

Welcome to Our Town, the award-winning play that that has drawn in audiences for eighty years. Alaska is the big state that's like a small town, and Our Town is set in every small town of your imagination and memory. Thorton Wilder's spare classic captures the depth of humanity through careful attention to everyday happenings, and will spark with the energy of Perseverance Theatre's Alaskan actors. Our Town is your town.

A Christmas Carol
(Anchorage Only)

Charles Dickens' Classic On Stage
BY ARLITIA JONES AND Michael Evan Haney
BASED ON THE BOOK BY Charles Dickens

Witness Ebenezer Scrooge's miraculous Christmas Eve transformation in Perseverance Theatre's adaptation of Dickens' famous book. Ebenezer Scrooge is a greedy businessman, with no place in his life for kindness, compassion, or charity, and destined to a lonely old age. But when four ghosts appear and warn him of a miserable afterlife, Scrooge is reminded of all the chances he had before to make different choices. Charles Dickens' classic tale of redemption skillfully faithfully adapted by Arlitia Jones and Michael Evan Haney never ceases to please.

Franklin
Mystery, science, and song
BY SAMANTHA NOBLE
World Premiere

Science and song intersect in a world-premiere drama set both on the boats of the infamous lost Franklin expedition, and amongst a crew of graduate students on their last-ditch expedition to discover what really happened. A singer-songwriter with deep ties to the arctic and its people strums her way onto the ship and into the lives of the scientists, upturning everything. In this layered mystery, will science or song--a chord change or a change of direction--be the source of the answers?

Teenage Dick

Even Machiavelli went through puberty.
BY Mike Lew

Richard's cerebral palsy might make him late to class, but it doesn't stop him from winning the girl, or mastering the art of deceptions based on his Machiavellian belief that it's better to be feared than loved. Student council secretary, and "third in line" to the purse strings wielded by the student president, Eddie, Richard finds the mere idea of power going to his head, and sophomore year is not too early to practice betrayal. Loosely inspired by Shakespeare's Richard III, Teenage Dick is a bubbling cauldron of youthful tragedy.

Guys and Dolls

The Classic Broadway Favorite
MUSIC AND LYRICS BY Frank Loesser - BOOK BY Jo Swerling AND Abe Burrows

BASED ON A STORY AND CHARACTERS BY Damon Runyon

Some guys find any choice or decision is a gamble or a game, but the rough and tumble street life might not ultimately fit with the romantic ambitions of hustlers Sky Masterson and Nathan Detroit. Based on the street-wise stories of Damon Runyon and featuring all those songs you love to tap your toes to by Frank Loesser, Guys and Dolls is a sure thing!

The Underpants
It's about underpants.
(Juneau Only)
BY Carl Sternheim
ADAPTATION BY Steve Martin

In a hilarious comedy by Steve Martin, a beautiful young woman finds her bloomers around her ankles in the middle of a royal parade. While she is sure no one noticed, her modest husband is mortified and rushes off to assess the level of gossip. Unexpected borders, nosy neighbors, and sudden new suitors fill the script gleefully adapted from Carl Steinheim's 1910 German Farce, "Die Hose." This bawdy comedy of manners finds crazy humor in the gender politics that are still relevant after more than 100 years.

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