Merry Ellefson (Major Grants Associate), merry@perseverancetheatre.org rejoins Perseverance on staff after a hiatus filled with raising her 7-year old son Arne, writing plays for the Theatre (Lost in Kubla Khan, Voyage, The Woman Who Married the Bear, Sea of Strength) and coaching JDHS cross country. From 1990-99 she served as Perseverance’s Development Director, Producing Director, Special Projects Coordinator and was a Board member for two years. The Theatre has also produced her plays on the Mainstage, Second Stage, and through STAR. She was honored as an AWARE Woman of Distinction in 2003 for her contributions to youth and women in the community.
Kathleen Harper (General Manager), kathleen@perseverancetheatre.org considers herself a jack-of-all-trades in the theatre profession. She has worked with Perseverance Theatre over the past four and a half seasons, splitting her time between props design, stage management duties, and special projects. She has also worked with the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre over the ’99 - ’04 summers as a stage manager, costume designer, actor, and tour manager. Kathleen is also a founding member other local Juneau Improv troupe. Kathleen grew up in Alaska, but graduated from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota with a double major in Theatre and Studio Art.
Ruth Kostik (Development Director), ruth@perseverancetheatre.org comes to Perseverance Theatre from Minnesota where she recently completed her MA in Arts & Cultural Management at Saint Mary’s University. As part of her education, she interned at PT in the Fall in 2009. She previously worked at PT as the stage manager for Hair and assistant stage manager for The Laramie Project. Ruth has done production work with numerous theatre companies over the years including Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre, Lincoln Amphitheatre, Park Square Theatre, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, and Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, where she also taught at CDT’s First Act Summer Camp.
Ken Poston (Technical Director), ken@perseverancetheatre.org was born in Bitburg, Germany, the youngest of an Air Force family whose travels took them all over Europe in the 60’s then on to Nevada, Michigan and finally, in 1970, to Sumter, South Carolina, where he grew up working in the family hardware store. The knowledge that he gained there (and the fact that he always had the keys to the hardware store) made him a natural choice to which the local community theatre could turn for technical needs. This “hobby” soon turned into an alternate career as the Sumter community arts organizations often offered to pay him for his efforts. Upon selling the family hardware business, Ken decided to return to the University of South Carolina and graduated in 1998 with a BA in Theatre. He continued on to earn an MFA with the Professional Theatre Training Program, at the University of Delaware in 2003. He spent the following year as a member of the faculty of West Chester University, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where, he served as Technical Director and Production Manager. In 2004, returned to South Carolina in order to work for Columbia, SC’s Richland School District One as the “Theatre Support Technician” for all district performance facilities. Ken has worked as a theatre professional for over twenty years in various capacities. Some of the positions he has filled include stage manager, technical director, scenic and lighting designer, master carpenter, stage carpenter, rigger, fly-man, audio technician, master electrician and properties master. He has worked for various performing arts organizations including The Sumter County Arts Council, The Sumter Little Theatre, University of South Carolina, Trustus Theatre (Columbia, SC), The Ashland Summer Theatre Festival, (Ashland, OH), The International Festival of Arts and Ideas (New Haven, CT), and The Columbia City Ballet, (Columbia, SC). Some of Ken’s professional memberships include the United States Institute of Theatre Technology, (USITT), the Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC), and I.A.T.S.E Local 347, Columbia, SC. Ken is happy to have escaped the heat and humidiy which comes with living in South Carolina, and more than willing to accept the weather here as a very reasonable alternative. He is looking forward to the opportunity to create some great theatre here in Juneau.
Jeff Rogers (Managing Director), jeff@perseverancetheatre.org Jeff comes to Juneau from Connecticut where he received his Master of Fine Arts in Dramaturgy and Dramatic from the Yale School of Drama in May 2007. While at Yale, he served as the Artistic Director of the Yale Cabaret and Executive Director of the Dwight/Edgewood Project, a youth playwriting program modeled after the 52nd Street Project. After his graduation, Jeff pursued post-graduate studies in theatre management, worked as the Associate Business Manager for the Yale Repertory Theatre, and served as a Teaching Fellow for the Yale School of Drama. Jeff spent the spring of 2008 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a dramaturg for The Comedy of Errors and Othello. His previous credits include directing Max Frisch’s The Firebugs and Ben Jonson’s Epicene at the Yale Cabaret and designing lights for The Caine Mutiny Court Marshall and The Drawer Boy at the Hope Summer Repertory Theatre. Jeff grew up in central Michigan where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatrical Design and Technical Production from Western Michigan University, after which he served a year-long tour of duty as a literary intern at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, MN.
Art Rotch (Artistic Director), art@perseverancetheatre.org Art was born in Boston of a family that was equal parts Nantucket whaling magnates turned brahmin philanthropists on his fathers side, and bohemian economists on his mother’s. Raised in Maine, he studied Russian Intellectual History at Harvard, graduated cum laude in History, and wrote his thesis on Soviet dissident thought. Art lived in Juneau, Alaska for fourteen years, where he began his relationship with Juneau’s Perseverance Theatre. At Perseverance, he designed dozens of productions beginning with the world premiere of Democracy by John Murrell (1991) and most recently O Lovely Glowworm by Peter Shaffer (2007). He worked with directors Molly Smith, Peter DuBois, and others and designed world premieres by Darrah Cloud, Paula Vogel, and Deborah Brevoort. While living in Juneau, Art also designed for Opera To Go, Theatre in the Rough, ACTFEST, The Juneau Lyric Opera, the JDHS Drama Department and developed a twelve-year-long association with Juneau Jazz and Classics. Other regional theater credits: Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, Epiphany Theatre Company, Foothill Theatre Company, Sacramento Theater Company, The People’s Light and Theatre Company, M Gorky Drama Theatre of Vladivostok, Russia, ActorsExpress, Opera House Arts and Trinity Repertory Company. Opera credits: Riders to the Sea/A Dinner Engagement (Manhattan School of Music), The Mother of Us All, La Doriclea (Juilliard), HMS Pinafore, Romeo et Juliette (Anchorage Opera), Eliogabolo, (Aspen). Upcoming Projects: Cyrano de Bergerac (Sacramento Theater Company), I Have Before me a Remarkable Document Given to me by a Young Lady from Rwanda (The People’s Light and Theater Company), Marko the Prince (Immigrants Theater Project) and Aspen. Art holds an MFA in Design from New York University’s Tisch School, where he studied set and lighting design for the stage, and was awarded the Seidman Prize for excellence in scenic design. Art is a member of the New York region of United Scenic Artists Local 829 of the IATSE, the union of professional designers for theatre, film, television, opera and industrials. After finishing his NYU degree in 2005, Art and Narelle Sissons established Designers Squared, a studio in New York City at West 30th Street and 6th Avenue, where he has been based until this summer, when he and his wife, set designer/painter and fellow NYU graduate Akiko Nishijima, relocated to Juneau.
Shona Strauser (Director of Education), shona@perseverancetheatre.org Shona enjoys working with young people to ensure that art plays a role in their every day lives. Shona moved to Juneau from Seattle over five years ago. While here, she has worked as an artist-in-residence at many schools. She has directed plays for and with young people in Texas, California, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska. Most of her training in theatre education came from working as the resident teaching artist at Seattle Repertory Theatre for many years. Shona loves living in Juneau, and when not doing theatre, tries to spend her time playing on the beach with her dog.
