{"id":47912,"date":"2019-05-15T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/theres-a-new-name-for-juneaus-longest-running-theater\/"},"modified":"2019-05-15T03:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T11:00:00","slug":"theres-a-new-name-for-juneaus-longest-running-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/theres-a-new-name-for-juneaus-longest-running-theater\/","title":{"rendered":"There&#8217;s a new name for Juneau&#8217;s longest-running theater"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Juneau&rsquo;s longest-running theater isn&rsquo;t giving up the ghost.<\/p>\n<p>The community theater formerly known as Juneau Douglas Little Theatre announced earlier this month that the company founded in Juneau in the 1960s changed its name to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneaughostlight.com\/get-involved\" target=\"_blank\">Juneau Ghost Light <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneaughostlight.com\/get-involved\" target=\"_blank\">Theatre<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A ghost light is a light left on the stage of a theater when it&rsquo;s unoccupied. It serves the practical purpose of illuminating an otherwise dark space, but is also tied to theatrical superstition.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We are technically a nomadic theater, we bounce for venue to venue, and we feel it reflects theaters around the community leaving the light on for us to come out and perform,&rdquo; said Heather LaVerne, president of the board of directors for Juneau Ghost Light Theatre, in an interview with the Capital City Weekly.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FJuneauGhostLightTheatre%2Fposts%2F10157330514904470&#038;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"392\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" allow=\"encrypted-media\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There were some other reasons for the name change, too.<\/p>\n<p>The little theater referred to in the organization&rsquo;s old name has been demolished. Also, the diminutive adjective used in the theater&rsquo;s former name caused some confusion.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;A few people thought we were children&rsquo;s theater due to the word little,&rdquo; LaVerne said. &ldquo;We aren&rsquo;t a children&rsquo;s theater. We have worked with younger actors before, but we don&rsquo;t specifically work with kids.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>While the name is new, the group behind previous full-length productions &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/motherhood-and-mood-stabilizers-juneau-douglas-little-theatres-next-to-normal\/\" target=\"_blank\">Next<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/motherhood-and-mood-stabilizers-juneau-douglas-little-theatres-next-to-normal\/\" target=\"_blank\"> to <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/motherhood-and-mood-stabilizers-juneau-douglas-little-theatres-next-to-normal\/\" target=\"_blank\">Normal<\/a>,&rdquo; &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/women-playing-hamlet-confidence-comedy-with-community-theatre\/\" target=\"_blank\">Women<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/women-playing-hamlet-confidence-comedy-with-community-theatre\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Playing <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/women-playing-hamlet-confidence-comedy-with-community-theatre\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hamlet<\/a>&rdquo; and &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/5-lesbians-will-make-you-laugh-think\/\" target=\"_blank\">5<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/5-lesbians-will-make-you-laugh-think\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Lesbians Eating a <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/5-lesbians-will-make-you-laugh-think\/\" target=\"_blank\">Quiche<\/a>,&rdquo; is sticking with its same annual fundraiser.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Insomni-ACTS&rdquo; formerly known as the &ldquo;24-Hour Miracle&rdquo; is set for 7 p.m. Saturday, May 25 at the Hangar Ballroom. Admission is $10.<\/p>\n<p>The event tasks four writers with writing a scene in a single night before handing their work in to a director, who then rehearses the work with actors over the course of the day before the shows are performed.<\/p>\n<p><ins>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/lgbtq-equal-rights-bill-unlikely-to-advance-any-further-this-year\/\" target=\"_blank\">LGBTQ protection bill unlikely to make it to law this year<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard it described once as the extreme sports of theater,&rdquo; LaVerne said.<\/p>\n<p>While the resulting works are often at least a bit odd, LaVerne said they generally aren&rsquo;t profane, and there is not a recommended age restriction for the audience. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It can be very incredible,&rdquo; LaVerne said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had shows in the past about time travel, about people who were swallowed by a whale and were having jealousy issues down there. There&rsquo;s been some very odd shows. It really depends on where the writer&rsquo;s mind goes when they&rsquo;re delirious in the wee hours of the morning.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Writers and directors for the upcoming show are still being gathered, and so are actors.<\/p>\n<p>LaVerne said it isn&rsquo;t unheard of for an actor to decide they&rsquo;re interested in participating the day of rehearsals. She said interested parties can reach out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JuneauGhostLightTheatre\/?ref=br_rs\" target=\"_blank\">through Facebook<\/a> and reach them at juneaughostlighttheatre@gmail.com.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We definitely encourage people to sign up,&rdquo; LaVerne said. &ldquo;The more people who do, generally the better the show is.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>\u2022 Contact arts and culture reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt.<\/b><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don&rsquo;t say boo. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":47913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[73,559],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-47912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-ccw","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47912","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\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47912"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=47912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}