{"id":3663,"date":"2017-01-25T01:12:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T09:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/home-but-not-less-built-on-alaskan-voices\/"},"modified":"2017-01-25T01:12:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T09:12:00","slug":"home-but-not-less-built-on-alaskan-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/home-but-not-less-built-on-alaskan-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHome But Not Less\u201d built on Alaskan voices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Patterson: I grew up in a deep dark violence and pain to the point where I was ready to destroy myself\u2026(starts to cry) but there\u2019s always been a noble piece inside of me\u2026 I don\u2019t know where it came.<\/em><\/p>\n

On the eve of Martin Luther King Day, playwright Merry Ellefson and Shona Strauser, director and literary advisor, were sharing quotes from their upcoming play, Home But Not Less: A Play Built On Alaskan Voices. One of those quotes is from Juneau resident Michael Patterson, a Tlingit Raven Coho from Y\u00e1ay Hit, the Whale House. Patterson\u2019s is the voice of someone who used to be homeless.<\/p>\n

In the theatre world, Home But Not Less is a type of nonfiction production known as \u201ctheatre of fact\u201d or documentary theatre. The script is based on local speeches, workshops, and more than 100 interviews with Alaskans like Michael. There are five acts, eight actors, and more than 30 characters..<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job is to educate, to get the information out there, and to get the new voices out, but the stories are all of our stories,\u201d said Strauser. \u201cThe guy who hangs out at the city building in the bathrooms downstairs is no different than you or I, but I have a place to sleep, take a shower and all of these other things that help me succeed, and that\u2019s hard to see, and walk by, and hard to be near, but my job is to create the hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juneauites who attended the first sold-out version of the play in 2015 will notice changes to the script. The production, however, remains true to what it has been lauded for: humanizing Alaska\u2019s most vulnerable populations.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople said \u2018you are changing the collective consciousness of this community,\u2019\u201d Ellefson said. \u201cDaycare providers were giving feedback like \u2018I used to have my kids walk across the street when someone was sitting in the street instead of walking by and just saying hello like we\u2019re neighbors.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It was this type of feedback that inspired Ellefson and Strauser to bring the play into its fourth year of production. There are forty-five new voices from Juneau, Anchorage, and around the state; the voices themselves tell the story without the help of the former narrator, \u201cMerry.\u201d The play exhorts the audience to take action, however small. It also includes stories of hope and remembrance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to start peeling back the communal responsibility that we are all in this together,\u201d said Ellefson.<\/p>\n

Ellefson\u2019s journey toward the play started while driving home from Mendenhall glacier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was driving home from skiing at the glacier and there was a guy who was walking down the road and fell, in the middle of the road. I pulled over, helped him, called 911, and realized \u2018Gosh, what happens to people in this town like this? Where do they go? He\u2019s 19, his grandpa just died, and he doesn\u2019t have a place to live,\u2019 and that started my journey as an artist and community member asking \u2018Whats going on with people like this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the 2015 production, Ellefson and Strauser have realized conversations being held on homelessness in Juneau were identical to the conversations being held in Anchorage and throughout Alaska. \u201cInjustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,\u201d said Martin Luther King Jr. Strauser puts it a different way: \u201cWe need to rise up and show them the grace we wish to be shown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHome but Not Less: A Play Built on Alaskan Voices\u201d will be shown at McPhetres Hall January 26-28 at 7:30 p.m., Jan. 29 at 2 p.m., Feb. 2-3 at 7:30 p.m., and Feb. 4 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The Anchorage showing will be February 9-12 in the Church of Love on Spenard. Each show will be followed by a discussion with leaders and resource providers. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for students, available at the JACC and Hearthside Books. For more information, contact Playwright Merry Ellefson at (907) 500-8112.<\/p>\n

Ray Friedlander is a freelance writer and filmmaker for her Juneau-based business, North to the Future Consulting.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Patterson: I grew up in a deep dark violence and pain to the point where I was ready to destroy myself\u2026(starts to cry) but there\u2019s always been a noble piece inside of me\u2026 I don\u2019t know where it came. On the eve of Martin Luther King Day, playwright Merry Ellefson and Shona Strauser, director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":3664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-3663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3663"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}