Eagle River’s own Mecca for the fine arts shapes the area’s cultural identity

EAGLE RIVER — Last Tuesday was a typical day at the Alaska Fine Arts Academy in Eagle River.

The academy’s executive director, Lailani Cook, arrived a couple hours ahead of the 2 p.m. opening to catch up on paperwork and prepare for the rush of after-school music students.

As teachers arrived, she greeted them, catching up on the news of the day and hearing of the progress of their students.

Soon, the sound produced by the pounding of young feet eagerly transporting the bodies of music students racing each other up the long staircase to the AFAA’s second floor location above Alaska Industrial Hardware signaled that practice rooms would soon be full.

Some students are headed to dance class; others to children’s choir rehearsal; others to a private lesson for one of the many instruments taught by AFAA instructors.

The sparkle in Cook’s eyes easily reveals how she feels about her job.

Cook digs her gig.

“I feel very blessed to be here,” she said.

That doesn’t mean her schedule isn’t just a bit hectic.

Between answering phones and processing payments for classes, she is in the AFAA theatre’s sound booth programming lights before the 6 p.m. rehearsal for the tech team training for the academy’s first big fall production. Various cast members fill the lobby awaiting their turn for a read-through in the green room as art students file through the lobby headed toward rooms on the other side of the building in which drawing and painting classes are held.

“Every room is full,” she said with a smile that simply cannot be faked. “But this is what we like here: The hustle and bustle of all sorts of forms of artistic expression going on.”

Since 1984, when the AFAA was established as a non-profit organization by Arthur W and Eleanor Braendel, it has been the “little academy that could” bringing arts education and performance to the Chugiak-Eagle River area on a shoestring budget.

The Braendel couple, who homesteaded in Eagle River beginning in 1947, were a pair of artistic visionaries who saw arts education as an essential part of the local community explained their son, Art Braendel, who now serves as the board vice president for the AFAA.

His parents were two of the original members of the 1946 Anchorage Little Symphony that was the predecessor to the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. His father played cello and his mother played viola in the symphony.

“My parents lived and breathed the fine arts and they completely believed in the Chugiak-Eagle River area having its own place where fine arts education and expression would occur,” Art said.

Both have since passed on, but their dream lives on in the current activities of the AFAA and in the lives impacted by the instruction, musical productions and plays resulting from its existence.

Just ask Renee Crumley of Eagle River.

In 2007, when her family moved to Alaska, the AFAA became their social base.

“It is definitely my social hangout,” she said.

Between string instrument lessons for the kids, Crumley putting together choreography for musicals and family members acting in plays, lasting friendships formed for Crumley and her kids.

“When we moved here, we didn’t know anybody,” Crumley said. “But we went to the AFAA, got involved and that quickly changed. We met really good friends here. The friends my kids made through the academy are the ones they hung out with while growing up and are the friends they still stay in contact with.”

The AFAA is where she goes for social connection and to sew.

Yes, sew.

Each musical or play produced by the AFAA requires its own set of costuming. Purchasing isn’t economically feasible for the academy, yet volunteers working on costuming came to the academy with plenty of enthusiasm but limited sewing skills.

So Crumley started a sewing class.

Current students range from a five-year-old boy learning to make a pillow to moms in their 40s.

In a roundabout way, involvement at the AFAA led Crumley to her new business: The Winning Stitch.

Crumley realized she had the skills necessary to open a home-based embroidery and sewing studio after successfully directing a couple of plays – ‘Charlotte’s Web’ and ‘A Seussified Christmas Carol’ – with the AFAA.

“At first I thought there was no way I could do this, but everyone encouraged me so much that it gave me a lot of confidence in myself and it is what has led to me being able to open my own business,” Crumley said. “It is something I would never have done before, but after directing I learned that I do have the ability to convey my own vision and thoughts and be able to put it together for the show and have it all expressed through the actors on the stage. That translates well into putting together a business plan.”

Last Friday night, Crumley served as house manager taking tickets and seating attendees for the AFAA’s presentation of the musical, “Ordinary Days.”

She overheard most of it, but did not actually sit through the entire performance.

That will be this Friday’s date night and she is looking forward to it.

“The voices I heard are incredible,” Crumley said.

Indeed.

Two of the musical’s four cast members are college trained.

Emma Wasko – who plays “Deb” a graduate student who has lost all of her notes essential for completing her thesis – is a current music major at the University of Alaska Anchorage with a double emphasis in education and performance. Edward Washington – who plays the starving artist “Warren” – graduate from UAA last winter with a music degree.

“I get goose bumps every time I hear them sing individually,” Cook said. “They all have this magic about them as they each tell their story when they are singing and then as a group, they come together to tell a story that each of us can relate to.”

Cook choose the musical “Ordinary Days” based on the lives of four New Yorkers for a September performance due to its underlying 9/11 theme.

Even though New York City is a long way from Eagle River, Cook said the theme of “Ordinary Days” is one that all people can understand.

“It is not just about people from New York, but it is a story about people trying to reach out to each other and make connections and make sense of their world and their lives and of their unanswered questions of what the future holds for them,” Cook said.

The opportunity to direct a musical with such intimate interaction between the characters is what drew longtime Anchorage director Warren Weinstein to the musical when Cook offered it to him.

Weinstein played Reuben last spring in the AFAA’s version of “Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat.” He immediately took a liking to the AFAA.

He has directed in nearly every playhouse in Anchorage and does not hesitate to say the AFAA has its own unique, likeable flavor.

“I don’t think other playhouses in Anchorage would have done this show,” he said.

In fact, ‘Ordinary Days’ does represent a bit of a departure from the norm for the AFAA.

With only four characters, there isn’t room for a large cast. Most AFAA production in the past has been shows with many, many characters – especially roles for children who take acting classes at the academy.

Weinstein will experience selecting a large cast – full of children and adults – in November when auditions for “The Marvelous Wonderettes” takes place for a late Jan. 2018 staging.

“There are always a lot of kids around this place,” he said.

That is just the scene Cook likes.

She’s been the executive director for a little more than a year now. Her lofty goals for the AFAA have kids – well, yes, and adults – at the center of its activities.

“We are living at a time when we need more than ever to be able to express, to find hope, to find solace, to find outlets,” Cook said. “Art can do that for us. I am not driven so much to be an executive director as I am to keep art alive and to work with others who also seek to keep those opportunities alive.”

Learn more about the Alaska Fine Arts Academy online at: www.akfinearts.org.