Panache Productions scriptwriting by Anne HanleyAnne Hanley anne@annehanley.com
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For excerpts or more information, click on the play titles below.
 

Winter Bear, a play by Anne Hanley The Winter Bear
(image by Michael Designs)

A defiant Koyukon Athabascan youth, Duane “Shadow” David, who wants to run away, and an elder, Sidney Huntington, who wants nothing but peace and quiet to write down his life’s wisdom for the next generation, are “sentenced” to spend a winter together in a remote cabin.

Athabascan hunters so fear a grizzly disturbed from its hibernation that they give it a special name, a Winter Bear. When such a creature threatens Huntington’s village, the old man and his reluctant protégé go out after it. In the end, it’s up to the boy, Duane, to take the bear with nothing but a “primitive” spear that the elder has taught him to make. Duane passes this supreme test of an old-time Koyukon hunter and one more modern ordeal that Sidney sets before him. He speaks simply and from his heart for the old man at a statewide Alaska Federation of Natives conference.

Cast: 3 men; 1 woman, plus 3 “animal spirits” of either gender.

Produced by Matthew Stevens for Denakkanaaga, Inc. and Diigii Naii, Inc. as part of a grant from First Alaskans Institute, 2008. Directed by Carey Seward.

Photo: Ring Around the Rosie, group on stage with set showing behind, outdoors, a play by Anne Hanley Ring Around The Rosie
(Photo by Arnold C. Tornell.)

In August 1665, William Mompesson considered himself one of the most blessed of creatures. He was 27, newly ordained, deeply in love with his famously beautiful wife and joyously assuming a new appointment as Rector of the Anglican church at Eyam in the English Midlands.

One year later, two-thirds of his congregation, including his beloved wife, were dead from the Plague. Nevertheless Mompesson was able to convince the survivors to voluntarily quarantine themselves to keep the Plague from spreading. This is a story of how a man can prevail with no certainty except his own conscience.

Cast: Eight men and four women playing multiple roles.

Staged reading by Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre, 2004. Directed by Graham Watts.

Photo: The Sunset Clause, nurse with male and female patients, two women standing, a play by Anne Hanley The Sunset Clause
(Photo by Richard Hansen.)

Ailing seniors Lydia Hamilton and Peter Musto want to get married so that they can accomplish the one thing that they’re not allowed to do at Meadowbrook Rehabilitative Center – die. Think Romeo & Juliet in a rest home, but instead of parents keeping the kids apart, it’s the kids – and the administration – trying to keep parents apart.

Cast: Four men; five women.

Produced by the Fairbanks Drama Association, Feb., 2006. Directed by Peggy MacDonald Ferguson.

Featured evening production at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, June 25, 2007. “This is one end-of-life play wearing a wicked grin. . . . As it turns out, one night in an old folks’ home won’t kill you – but it might make you laugh so hard you’ll need a bed pan.” – Sarah Henning, Anchorage Daily News.

Photo: two men arm wrestling, three women standing, scene from FU2, a play by Anne Hanley FU2
(Photo by Richard Hansen.)

A bitter old white man’s fondest wish comes true when a young black punk breaks into his house. Instead of scoring an easy hit, the young man finds himself captured in a booby-trapped chamber-of-horrors. When two Mormon missionaries knock, the two former enemies must join forces to keep the Mormons from saving their souls.

Cast: Five males.

Edward Albee/Last Frontier Playwriting Conference Panelists Choice Award

Staged readings by the Looking Glass Group Theatre; and by Juneteenth Legacy Theater, Louisville, KY; and by Cyrano's Theater, Anchorage.

 
 

Photo: from UAA Dept Theatre and Dance production of Shotridge, by Anne Hanley Shotridge
(Photo by UAA Dept. Theatre & Dance. Used with permission.)

Can a man live in two worlds?

This play was suggested by the life of Tlingit Native American Louis Shotridge (born Klukwan, Alaska, around 1886; died Sitka, Alaska, 1937). Shotridge was the son of the last traditional chief of the Whale House Clan. To this day he is a controversial figure among the Tlingit people.

Louis Shotridge, an ambitious, high-caste Tlingit, thinks he can reconcile his traditional Tlingit upbringing and his Western education by becoming an anthropologist.  He tries to collect the last pieces of ceremonial value to his own culture for the University Museum in Philadelphia. He believes he is doing the right thing, but when his wife takes sick, he is forced  to steal powerful sacred objects from his ancestral clan house in order to pay for the best western-style medical care for her. When she dies, he must steal a sacred object from the Museum in order to bury her properly. Like the man in the Tlingit myth who marries a bear, Louis Shotridge learns that when a man tries to live in two worlds, he becomes an outscast in both.

Cast: Nine men; five women

Produced by the University of Alaska Anchorage, 1995. Directed by Michael Hood.

Staged reading by Perseverance Theatre, Juneau, Alaska

 
 
 
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