Also known as the Black Box, the Harper Studio is a flexible performance space that allows for a variety of configurations, seating up to 100. For tickets to UAA Theatre & Dance events in this space, please visit UAATix.

Read more about Jerry Harper, the Harper Studio Namesake, in the articles below.

• Black box theater renamed to honor Cyrano’s Harper

  Who was Jerry Harper, and Why Is a Theatre at UAA Named for him?

  

  One month after the death of Jerry Harper, a premier director and actor in the Anchorage theater scene, hundreds of friends, artistic collaborators and fans gathered at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium, May 10 to pay tribute to Harper’s life and artistic vision. Harper, who operated Cyrano’s Off Center Playhouse and acted as artistic director of the Eccentric Theater Company, died of cancer, April 8.

  In tribute to the founder of one of Anchorage’s most highly esteemed venues, a wide variety of performance styles were on display, ranging from Irish step dancing to Klezmer music and capped off by a video tribute which included rare footage of Harper’s television appearances in such shows as “M.A.S.H.,” as well as statements from prominent local artists and writers. “Jerry was interested in creating a legacy,” said Kim Rich, author of the memoir, Johnny’s Girl. “And not just a legacy for himself, but for the rest of us.”

  At the end of the night the black box theater in the UAA Fine Arts Building was renamed the Jerry Harper Theater in a dedication ceremony led by Chancellor Elaine Maimon. “The black box seemed like the right place for a tribute,” said Fran Lautenberger, professor of theater. “It’s the place where a lot of our students have their first experience of theater, perform for the first time.”

  Since its inception in 1992, the theater at Cyrano’s has been an important venue for students from UAA interested in acting and design. “I’m 22 years old and I’ve been able to do things some people never do in their lives,” said Stuart Matthews, a UAA theater major who has performed in several shows at Cyrano’s. “I’ve been paid for acting. I’ve been able to work in one of the best places in town. I have Cyrano’s to thank for that.”

  Harper’s friend Marilyn Buckley emphasized the crucial role that theaters such as Cyrano’s play in educating performers and audiences alike.

  - Paul Bryner May 23, 2005

• Harper Inspires as King Lear

  Veteran Actor’s Reach Encourages UAA Shakespeareans To Stretch

  In hiring Jerry Harper for the title role of Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” in the current University of Alaska Anchorage production, director David Edgecombe knew he was getting one of the best actors in Alaska to play the foolish monarch who gives away his kingdom to daughters who do not love him. What Edgecombe, a UAA theater professor, did not fully anticipate was that 69- year-old Harper would become a surrogate instructor who would inspire the mostly student cast to their best efforts and teach them acting tricks. “It’s been such a learning process for me and everybody, just being on stage with actors like Jerry who give you so much to work off of,” said Molly Killoran, a 22- year-old theater major who plays Coneril, one of the two daughters who humiliate the king.

  “When you’ve got a scene with him, he comes to it with so much technique and interpretation,” said Geof Richie, a theater student who plays the loyal Earl of Gloucester. “It makes me step back and look at a wide variety of choices."

  

  Harper, co-founder and artistic director of the Eccentric Theatre Company at Cyrano’s Off-Center Playhouse, has acted since college days in Oregon. His credits include TV and film roles, regional and improvisational theater in California and a Chicago critic’s nomination in 1968 as best actor in a professional play, topping James Earl Jones as Othello. Alaskans know his voice from numerous radio ads. UAA’s Theatre Department periodically employs older actors to help close a gap in community theater that developed when the Alaska Repertory Theatre died in the mid-1980s, Edgecombe said.

  In hiring Jerry Harper for the title role of Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” in the current University of Alaska Anchorage production, director David Edgecombe knew he was getting one of the best actors in Alaska to play the foolish monarch who gives away his kingdom to daughters who do not love him. What Edgecombe, a UAA theater professor, did not fully anticipate was that 69- year-old Harper would become a surrogate instructor who would inspire the mostly student cast to their best efforts and teach them acting tricks. “It’s been such a learning process for me and everybody, just being on stage with actors like Jerry who give you so much to work off of,” said Molly Killoran, a 22- year-old theater major who plays Coneril, one of the two daughters who humiliate the king.

  “When you’ve got a scene with him, he comes to it with so much technique and interpretation,” said Geof Richie, a theater student who plays the loyal Earl of Gloucester. “It makes me step back and look at a wide variety of choices.”

  Harper, co-founder and artistic director of the Eccentric Theatre Company at Cyrano’s Off-Center Playhouse, has acted since college days in Oregon. His credits include TV and film roles, regional and improvisational theater in California and a Chicago critic’s nomination in 1968 as best actor in a professional play, topping James Earl Jones as Othello. Alaskans know his voice from numerous radio ads. UAA’s Theatre Department periodically employs older actors to help close a gap in community theater that developed when the Alaska Repertory Theatre died in the mid-1980s, Edgecombe said.

  “We’re to be a community resource,” he said. “We owe it to the community to cast community members, and it’s a great example for the students.” “King Lear,” which some critics have called too big for the stage, is one of the most difficult Shakespeare plays to mount and a long stretch for college students, Edgecombe said. “I’ve been associated with maybe six or eight college theater departments and have never seen it performed by students,” he said. “One reason is the difficulty of casting the central part, but it’s a real challenge because it does concentrate on the relationship of people with a few years under their belt.”

  Edgecombe, 49, who co-founded the Indiana Shakespeare Festival, has directed Harper in several plays at Cyrano’s, most recently in “Syd,” the one-man show about Alaska painter Sydney Laurence. Harper’s role in “King Lear,” as the department’s guest artist in residence, was confirmed in August. A small horde —45 women and 32 men —auditioned in September for the 16 other parts; three of the roles changed from men to women to accommodate the high female interest. “It was the largest turnout I’ve ever had,” Edgecombe said. He blamed the dramatist —”They come out of the walls to do Shakespeare” —and a whole flush of new talent. But he also credited Harper’s reputation. “When he walked into the auditions, they gave him a big round of applause,” Edgecombe said. From the start, the cast’s first ensemble reading of the script, Harper “came out of the chute at performance level,” said Laure MacConnell, an older theater student who plays Lady of Kent, altered from the original Earl of Kent. “He set the standard so high,” MacConnell said. “People were already coming to rehearsals with character analysis.”

  “Within the first week of rehearsals our scenes were already alive and taking shape,” Killoran said. Harper started with a bang because he had experience with Edgecombe, he said. “I knew he likes to see you let go a little,” he said. But Harper had no idea he would be a model for others. “Their training here is pretty good, much better than I had,” he said. With half a dozen Shakespearean roles on his sheet, he told cast members early in rehearsals that Shakespeare was such a perfect writer that every line fits neatly into the actor’s mouth. “Jerry teaches us if you’re having a hard time saying the line, look at the line” for how it should be uttered, MacConnell said. His advice helped her smooth out at least one tongue-twister. Harper’s skill as an instinctual actor who lets his characters emerge without any apparent effort gave his fellow actors lots to work from, they said.

  “If I was to try to emulate anything about his style, it’s that sense of when he walks on the stage, he owns it,” said Jeffrey McCamish, a UAA theater alumnus who plays Edgar, Gloucester’s good son. “He’s a good craftsman, so he doesn’t upstage you, he doesn’t step on your lines,” MacConnell said.

  Killoran recalled how, in a scene in which Lear harshly rebukes Goneril, Harper’s intensity helped bring her to a level of emotion she initially feared. “Usually I do a sense memory —I would imagine if my father was doing it —to help pull me emotionally into the scene,” Killoran said. “Usually it would take me weeks to work up into that emotional state.” But after one rehearsal, she was home. “There’s no change in his voice. He’s not making words sound scary,” Killoran said. “He’s completely King Lear, and I feel all the more like Goneril.”

  - Peter Porco, Anchorage Daily News, 1999

• The Jerry Harper Service Award

  Presented Annually at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference Prince William Sound Community College, Valdez, Alaska Part of the University of Alaska

  

   Jerry Harper is a hero of theatre in Alaska, renowned for his talent, kindness, and work ethic. More than one thousand people attended his memorial at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium in Anchorage. At the Conference, he was a fixture in the evening performances and the Play Lab. At the University of Alaska Anchorage, the Studio Theatre was renamed in his honor.

  The annual Jerry Harper Service Award has been created to honor people who have supported the Valdez Last Frontier Theatre Conference the way he did, heart and soul. The Conference is the creation of many people. While credit is rightly given to its founders, PWSC President Emeritus Jo Ann C. McDowell and Edward Albee, and to its staff, there are hundreds of people each year who play a role in its creation. From the producers of the evening shows to the caterers, from the playwrights to the actors, from the financial benefactors to the people at the high school who loan us the music stands... it belongs to all of us.

  The Jerry Harper Service Award exists to annually recognize someone who has gone above and beyond the call of duty over the life of the event. The first year’s award was given to Michael Warren Powell, the father of the Play Lab. The next year it was given to the Technical Director for the Conference from 1993 to 2014, Jim Cucurull. In 2009, it went to long-time Valdez Star reporter and participant Ron Holmstrom. In 2010, TBA Theatre Artistic Director Shane Mitchell was the recipient, and in 2011, powerhouse director and Conference supporter Erma Duricko was honored.

  We celebrated our 20th year by honoring the event’s founder, PWSC President Emeritus Jo Ann C. McDowell, and the year after we recognized her long time producing partner Gail Renardson. In 2014, Stan and Mary Helen Stephens Jerry Harper in The Sea Gull in 2004 were recognized for their longtime support of the Conference, as well as their generosity to the college and surrounding communities. The 2015 Award was presented to longtime Anchorage Theatre mainstays David Edge[1]combe and Elizabeth Ware. The 2016 award went to the former president of PWSC Doug Desorcie. For the 25th anniversary of the Conference, Sandy Harper was recognized as the Producing Artistic Director Emeritus of Cyrano’s Theatre Company, which she co-founded with Jerry.

  - Dawson Moore