Pier One Theater opened Another Dimension, a ten-minute play festival of eight unique, Alaska composed plays, most of them local, at Pier One Theatre on the spit last weekend. This is the third year of the event production. One of the producer’s, Christine Kulcheski, introduced the event and explained where play submissions came from:
“I'm Chris Kulcheski and Rudy Multz and I have been producing this 10-minute play festival for Pier One Theater. This is our third year, and this year, we have five playwrights from Homer and three from elsewhere. And elsewhere includes folks that have been participants at the Valdez Theater Conference because Pier One Theater is trying to work with them and form a relationship with those folks,” Kulcheski said.
Rudy Multz elaborated:
“The idea is to encourage folks to get out and try and write a play, and the workshop really helped people, you know, be able to do that in a short period of time, and then actually submit plays to the festival. We had a ton of people, like I think there were like 17 or 18 people that showed up for the playwriting Workshop and yeah, and then we select directors, and the directors get to select their cast, and then we have a show. Over the last couple months, we've been rehearsing, but we weren't able to get into this space until just a couple weeks ago, so it's all like coming together, kind of by the seat of our pants, pretty much. Yeah, and it's awesome. Last night was incredible,” Multz said.
According to their website, the Valdez Theater Conference is hosted by the Prince William Sound Community College, held each June in Valdez and brings together playwrights, actors and theater enthusiasts from across Alaska and the United States for a week of artistic exchange. “Participants are completely immersed in the theatre arts for seven days with a blend of performances, developmental readings, classes and social events. The 2027 conference will run June 6th-12th. The Conference is dedicated to fostering playwrights and the presentation of new works by Alaskans.”
Homer’s Ken Landfield directed “An Essential Play” written by Rand Higbee and explained his participation as director and those of the actors in “Another Dimension”:
“I enjoy directing. I enjoy it a lot. I just love telling people what to do. All the actors, they're just wonderful and so receptive and so willing to try new things. And you know that's one of the reasons why you get into theaters to try new things and be someone that you aren't and all that sort of thing. So they're having a good time. I'm having a good time. We're all having a good time,” Landfield said.
“An Essential Play” features actors Jessie Hahn, Eazy Hazi, Mary Jane Shows and Rich Kleinleder.
Actor Adrian Ryan grew up in Homer and recently moved back to see what it will be like to spend the fall and winter here. Ryan performed as Simmons in “Life, on Mars” written and directed by Rudy Multz. Ryan described his new experience working on stage for this event:
“It's been really interesting. So I attended these as an audience member the last couple of years. I've really loved the short play festival. I have a lot of friends who do Pier One. I've never been in a Pier One play, even though I grew up here in Homer. So it's been a lot of fun. It's a lot of seeing all the hard work that actually goes into making these shows exist. Up until now, I've just you know cut like heard like my friends are in plays. When I come, I see some great performances. I laugh. I get emotional, and then great, thanks so much, guys. Now I really have been seeing you know, I mean it's weeks of work and rehearsal. We're all, you know, building our own props, our own costumes. Everyone's pitching in for everything. There's not a crew in the background making it happen. We're all just making it happen together, which is a really fun thing to be a part of. So it's really cool to see how this comes together and to offer this sort of opportunity or this sort of entertainment, rather, to the Homer community as a whole,” he said.
This coming weekend’s upcoming schedule and tickets for Another Dimension are available on the Pier One website: pieronetheatre.org.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
