Creative Team

Anne Hanley (Playwright & Co-Producer) is a former Alaska Writer Laureate whose plays have been produced in Alaska and Outside. She was a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and co-edited The Alaska Reader: Voices from the North (Fulcrum, 2006). Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and the Yale Alumni Magazine. (www.annehanley.com)

Jayne Wenger (Director & Co-Producer) is a director and dramaturg whose exclusive focus is on original material. She is the past Artistic Director of the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation and was the Artistic Director of Women’s Ensemble in New York. She has developed the emerging work of acclaimed playwrights throughout the country. Her last five years in theater have been focused on activism: directing new plays about the class divide in America, environmental issues, and women’s empowerment. (www.jaynewenger.com)

Janice Markham (Executive Producer) is an actor/writer/musician/activist and Artistic Director of Vox Box Arts Collective, Inc. She is eagerly anticipating the release of Vox Box's first feature film, Ron and Laura Take Back America, a collaboration with Magical Iguana Productions. (www.voxboxarts.com)

Pete Pinney (Sponsor) is treasurer of the North Star Community Foundation and Associate Vice Chancellor for Community and Native Education at the College of Rural & Community Development at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Sheila Wyne (Set Design), a visual artist and set designer based in Anchorage, has received an NEA/TCG Fellowship, a Rasmuson Artist Fellowship, a Boochever Fellowship, the Alex Combs Artist Award, and grants from the AK State Council on the Arts and the Andy Warhol and Rockefeller Foundations. In 2009, she received the Governor’s Individual Artist Award. (www.sheilawyne.com)

David Szlasa (Video and Sound Design) works in performance and video art designing projects for theater and dance installations. He specializes in the integration of technology into live performance, and explores how media and technology restructure patterns of social interdependence. He has collaborated on more than 50 projects nationally and internationally. (www.davidszlasa.com)

Lalla Williams (Costume Design) (Alutiiq/Sugpiaq/Aleut) is the daughter of Lucille Antowok-Davis from Karluk on Kodiak Island. She most recently created the garments for Raven’s Radio Hour and Time Immemorial at Cyrano’s Theatre. Lalla is the 2010 Recipient of the Governor’s Native Artist Award.

Stephen Blanchett (Movement Consultant) (Yup’ik/African American) is one of the founders of Pamyua, Alaska’s world-renowned tribal funk group that fuses traditional Native music with world rhythms. He is also a teacher, musician, dancer and ambassador of Alaska Native culture.

Irene Bedard (Miranda) (Inupiat/Yup’ik/Cree) was born and raised in Anchorage and was a founding member of the Native American theater ensemble Chuka Lokoli. She has over 40 film and TV credits including Smoke Signals and Disney’s Pocahontas.

Andrew Demientieff (Duane) (Degexit’an Athabascan) was born in Holy Cross and lives in Anchorage, where he is pursuing his G.E.D. He is a Gold Medal winner in High Kick at the Native Youth Olympics and regularly demonstrates his athletic skill at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.

Brían Wescott (Sidney Huntington) (Koyukon/Yup’ik), grew up in Fairbanks where he first studied acting with Molly Smith at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. His credits include the film Christmas in the Clouds, the first Native American comedy, and the play, We Are Still Here, about Cahuilla Indians.

Steven Hunt (Production Manager) is a playwright, actor, director and lighting designer. He has directed at many venues in Anchorage, including UAA, APU and Cyrano’s.

Janet Stoneburner (Stage Manager) has been a stage manager at over a dozen Alaskan theaters and has managed four touring companies. She is now a Production Associate at Alaska Theater for Youth where she mentors stage managers.

Darl Andrew Packard (Lighting Designer) has collaborated with David Szlaza, Dan Wolf and Tommy Shepherd on Stateless: A Hip Hop Vaudeville Project.  He also played a major role with San Francisco's CounterPULSE's Performing Diaspora Festival in both 2009 and 2010 where he functioned as both Production Manager and Lighting Designer. He also works with San Francisco's favorite sketch comedy group Killing My Lobster, as well as with a number of Bay Area dance and theater companies.  Visit http://darlandrewpackard.wordpress.com/ for more extensive information.