A readers’ theater performance at Haines School last week both memorialized and made history.
With a premiere of Annie Boochever’s “No Natives Allowed: Elizabeth Peratrovich Fights for Equality,” Haines middle school students became the first actors ever to perform the short play celebrating renowned Alaska Native rights activist Elizabeth Peratrovich. Some performers said the play taught them more details about Peratrovich’s story and about discrimination against Alaska Natives.
Even though the Feb. 16 performance, premiering on Peratrovich Day, ran no longer than 20 minutes, it tracked Peratrovich from her life with husband Roy in Bellingham, where the pair went to college, to the discrimination she and her family later faced in Juneau to her advocacy that led to the first major civil rights legislation passed by any territory or state in the country.
The play’s pinnacle was a scene of the packed-house territorial legislature hearing where Peratrovich successfully lobbied for Alaska’s 1945 anti-discrimination bill.
“No law will eliminate crimes, but at least you guys as legislators can assert to the world that you see the evil in the present situation and can help us overcome discrimination,” said sixth grader Natalee Grant, playing Peratrovich at the hearing.
The law passed. The crowd clapped. But the play continued, ending with Peratrovich’s plea for more change, and a note about her legacy.
“I hereby proclaim February 16, the day in 1945 when Alaska’s discrimination bill was signed into law, Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, to honor her courageous, unceasing efforts to eliminate discrimination and to bring about equal rights in Alaska,” said Sara Tokeinna Barr, playing Gov. Steve Cooper.
Boochever’s play was adapted from a book with the same title that Boochever is working on for students. “It’s never been done anywhere else,” she said of the play. “I only wrote this script because (Haines faculty) asked me to write a script about Elizabeth Peratrovich.”
Boochever also is the author of an earlier book about Peratrovich, Fighter in Velvet Gloves, which she wrote with the help of Roy Peratrovich Jr., Elizabeth’s son.
Peratrovich’s story is especially relevant for middle school students, Boochever said. “Middle schoolers are kind of at that age where they are trying to find their own identity and deciding what to rebel against and what not,” she said. “I think justice is really important to middle school kids. I think they totally can relate to all the issues (Peratrovich) went through.”
Spencer Baumgartner, a sixth grader who performed as a narrator, said he knew of Fighter in Velvet Gloves and enjoyed meeting Boochever, who spent the week in Haines rehearsing with students.
“I learned that (Peratrovich) faced a lot more than what you would think. It was a struggle for her to get to where we are now,” Baumgartner told the CVN. “I learned that we have to work really hard to overcome something that’s ginormous.”
The play also taught sixth grader Yoa Galindo-George, who also played a narrator, “more about the details” of Peratrovich’s story.
“I didn’t know as much about it,” he said. “I always thought (discrimination) was more in other places. I guess it happened just as much here.”
Due to limited rehearsal time, Boochever and assistant director Natalie Benassi cut the first act of the play, which includes Pertatrovich’s birth (on the Fourth of July) and her childhood as an adoptive child, Boochever said. “There were some really cute parts that I hope next year they get to do,” she added.
Students went through the script more than seven times, Benassi told the audience after the play.
“We’re a K-12 school and finding the space was so incredibly difficult. But we have practiced in my tiny room. We practiced on this tiny stage. We practiced everywhere,” she said. “I’m so incredibly proud of this work.”