Peak performance

David Block wears many hats, both on and off the stage.

A staple of the Anchorage theater scene, Block, who earned his master's in teaching from UAA in '91, has occupied virtually every production role throughout his lifetime in the theater, from writing, directing and acting to pulling curtain ropes backstage.

Block is the founder and artistic director of Midnight Sun Theatre (MST), which he describes as a "theater company without a stage." Block wouldn't have it any other way, likening MST's model to the concept of a storefront theater.

"I think of Midnight Sun as Anchorage's storefront nomad theater company," says Block. "We don't have a consistent place where we perform. I think our ability to be mobile allows us to do things that we couldn't do if we had a venue that we were tied down to. It lets us try different things that other companies would find difficulty with. So that's a strength we have and I don't think I want to change that."

Popularized in Chicago, storefront theaters are compact venues born out of necessity, putting on shows in literal storefronts and backrooms. Because of the small production size, these shows are more mobile and could easily relocate to other venues. And due to their more limited reach, storefront theaters are an ideal environment for developing actors to train and for creators to test out experimental content.

All three characteristics describe MST to a T.

The flexibility that comes with not being rooted down has given Block and his troupe the opportunity to perform on nearly every stage across Anchorage - both large and small - and even to places with no stage at all.

"Last year when the Shakespeare Festival was starting, we were doing pop-up stuff downtown," he explains. "We were on the street or in town square, and we would pull in, do a Shakespeare scene, jump back in the van and tear off to the next place. That's a niche we can seek out for ourselves that other companies might not be able to do."

Educating minds and developing talent is an area of particular significance to Block, who has served as a teacher at West Anchorage High School for the past 25 years. Drawing from both his theater and education backgrounds, Block created an educational arm to MST dubbed the Midnight Sun Performing Arts Academy (MSPAA). While providing theatrical training to young adults was always the goal, fostering a sense of community was an added bonus.

"We think of theater as an agent of change in terms of policy and social things for example," Block says. "But over time, especially working with young people, I saw that theater is a change agent at very personal and individual levels, and I've seen lives of young people completely turned around because of their involvement in this medium."

When it comes to the type of content MST produces, Block notes, "We try to pick things that other people aren't doing. I like to think there's something for everyone at these shows."

MST complements the robust offerings from Anchorage's theater community with nontraditional shows, like last year's "White Rabbit Red Rabbit," a one-person show where an actor performs a script he or she is reading for the first time. Last winter was also the sophomore edition of MST's Serial Bowl, an elimination event where playwrights submit one-act plays that are performed in front of an audience who votes on which plays proceed with a new act until a winner is crowned.

This season, Block is doubling down on niche.

For the past nine years, MST has partnered with Anchorage Community Theatre (ACT) for an annual summer show. This summer, Block wrote and directed "Romeo and Julius," a show that collects the funny anecdotes and horror stories from his many years in theater and cathartically lays it out for audiences to see.

"It's the story of what happens in a community theater when an actor goes off the rails and the director has to step in," Block shares. "It was based on the many years of theater interaction that I had, so these characters and incidents and stuff that happens in the play are all stuff that happened in shows that I have been involved with, so it was fun to build them into a show."

Typically, the show at ACT is the only one MST does in the summer. However, new to this year is the addition of a second production: "Dr. Fortean's Klondike Gold Elixir and Wild Big Alaska Show!" Written by Block and his brother, "Dr. Fortean" is a self-proclaimed "cheesy Alaskan melodrama" and performed at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Anchorage to draw in tourists.

If that venue and target audience sounds familiar, you might be thinking of Mr. Whitekeys' long-running show "Whale Fat Follies," which normally calls the Hard Rock home during the tourist season. This summer, however, the iconic entertainer is taking a sabbatical, leaving the door open for another act to keep the stage warm until his return - perfect for the theater company that is constantly in need of a venue.

"A former student of mine came to me and said, 'Hey, Hard Rock said that Whitekeys is gone this summer and they need a show. Do you know anyone who has a tourist show?' And I went, 'As a matter of fact I do,'" Block describes. "My brother and I wrote this script and it just kind of stayed in a drawer. It's a family show. Lots of singing, booing and hissing at the villain, those classic things."

MST's expanded offerings this season is largely due to Block's retirement from teaching last year. Even with his busier theater schedule, he still makes time to be an educator.

Predating MST and MSPAA, Block established the tutoring company Aether Education around the same time he began teaching high school. While Block can assist with specific subjects, his mission with Aether is to help students develop the tools to learn how to study rather than just what to study, which he perceives as a shortcoming in the current educational system.

Aether's focus is on middle school and high school students, although Block is happy to help anyone, including college students like his first pupil.

"When I first started teaching, my mother was finishing her art degree at UAA, and one of the classes she had to take was statistics. She was asking for help and then it suddenly clicked that maybe other people need this help, too. So I ended up starting to tutor students in geometry, algebra, etcetera, and it just grew out of that," he recalls.

Continuing his streak of keeping busy post-retirement, Block is growing both of his education endeavors.

Next August, Block will take his MSPAA performers to Scotland where they have been invited to perform at the American High School Theatre Festival, which runs in conjunction with the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe (EFF). Established in 1947, EFF is considered the largest arts festival in the world. Just last year, BBC reports that the festival ran for 25 days and featured 3,398 shows spanning 300 venues.

Aether has also grown by recently implementing a program that helps students with disabilities find jobs. Even though the job placement resource has become the fastest growing segment of Aether, Block is adding more offerings, including workshops where he visits schools to teach students about the fundamental tools they need for academia, like goal setting and note taking.

If his retirement job sounds suspiciously similar to the job he had before, don't worry, he knows.

"People keep saying, 'You're retired and now you're going back in the schools?' Yeah, but now I'm only doing the things I want to do instead of the things I have to do," he insists.

Although a calendar as full as Block's might stress out some, he is too busy enjoying the remaining run of "Dr. Fortean" performances to notice.

"I've been very lucky to work with my friends," he says. "These are people I've known for years. Some of them are former students. It's like when you're a kid and you have your club and your clubhouse and hang out with those people. Sometimes rehearsal can be a mess because we're having so much fun goofing off, but it's a really great experience because you're doing stuff with your family and I think that comes out in the work."

Written by Matt Jardin, UAA Office of University Advancement