Shakespeare in Alaska, part 2

PJ PAPARELLI: It's very unique here in Juneau at Perseverance. We are the state's regional theater and we serve pretty much, including Juneau, the 30,000 people that live in Juneau, we also serve people that live in the surrounding communities in the largest state in the country. So I feel, as the artistic director, a responsibility for programming all kinds of theater, not a particular type or genre, but a broad variety of programming so that we are bringing all types of theater to the state.

So Shakespeare is one of those many types, and when I got here last year we decided to announce a Shakespeare cycle where we'll be producing one Shakespeare play a year to try to get through all 33 plays, and having him in the season once a year allows our audiences to see sort of the greatest theater from 400 years ago as well as the greatest theater from now.

I think the biggest thing and most important thing, especially here in Alaska, is to create a Shakespeare, or any kind of classical theater, that's very clear, first off, is that the actors really understand what they're saying and have a technique so that they're communicating clearly what the play is to the audience. And we have a company of actors that are in residence here in Juneau. So the great advantages of that are that you're continuing to work with the same group of people and they have a long history and chemistry with each other and they're building off of the parts that they've played the year before. I mean, last year we did Midsummer Night's Dream and now those comics are going on to play the comics in Twelfth Night. So there's a real company feeling, which is very similar to the way Shakespeare was writing the plays, knowing, probably knowing exactly who was going to play them from this company. So we're building on that.

I think the plays are extraordinarily accessible. They don't need to have, you know, a high concept or some sort of contemporary flair to them. Not to say that we wouldn't contemporize a Shakespeare play, but I don't think that needs to be put on top of the play to make it clear and accessible.