Scott Burton, KTOO

During this year’s Alaska Folk Festival, we filmed ten bands in a tiny room at the Alaskan Hotel as part of our Red Carpet Concert series. The videos are inspired by NPR’s popular Tiny Desk Concerts. The only criteria for the short concerts are that the music is original, and that it is played on the arts room’s red carpet wherever it may be — at KTOO, in a parking garage or on a beach.

Here are past Red Carpet Concerts with musicians like the Bowties, Sean Tracey and Nate May, Dara Rilatos, Cousin Curtiss, or Sophia Street. Check back on Friday for the release of Oregon-based Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms.

What do you get when you pack 10 Alaska Folk Festival bands and all the audio/video gear and people to shoot and record them into a 12-by-12-foot room at the Alaskan Hotel?

You get a series of one-song videos with bands like The Carper Family, Harrison B, Foghorn Stringband, Kim Beggs and the Bowties. Over the next three weeks, we’re releasing a series of Red Carpet Concerts from Folk Fest, a collaboration between KTOO Public Media, Juneau filmmaker Ryan Cortes and audio engineer Justin Smith.

To start, here is the San Francisco-based Bowties with “Houston Blues.”

Here are some of our other Red Carpet Concerts with musicians like Sean Tracey and Nate May, Dara Rilatos, Cousin Curtiss and Sophia Street. Check in on Wednesday for the release of Whisky Class with Liz Snyder and Patrick Troll.

Perseverance Theatre’s production of “Annapurna” opens this Friday.

Anchorage-based actor Kevin T. Bennett says, “It’s like a symphony of missed opportunities for human beings.” Despite the gloomy description, he is quick to point out the play is also quite funny.

Bennett is one of two actors in the production and plays a recovering alcoholic who lives in a low-rent trailer park in Colorado.

“There’s this fella, by the name of Ulysses, who has had a remarkably checkered past. His health is failing and it looks grim for him. In through the door walks his estranged wife of 20 years,” says Bennett.

Enter Fairbanks-based Rebecca George who plays Emma. Readers may recognize her from her part as Dean Wreen in last spring’s Perseverance production of “Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England.”

“Over the course of the play we have an opportunity to explore the core of our humanity, and humor, the remnants of love, and rationale and substance abuse. In any case, the story unfolds in these two characters over the course of an hour and 40 minutes until we reach the conclusion—it’s a bit shocking,” Bennett says. He also played Ulysses in Perseverance’s productions of “Annapurna” in Anchorage.

“It’s very lyrical. There are sentiments shared by these two characters that are just so truthful that it’s impossible not to relate to,” says Bennett.

In researching the part, Bennett spoke with playwright Sharr White.

“He has a way with words. We discussed how he wrote the play, and how the words are almost musical. They’re orchestrated in such a way that they’re like movements, individual movements, of a fine piece of classical music,” says Bennett.

While “Annapurna” officially opens Friday at Perseverance Theatre, you can catch pay-as-you-can previews Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

By the end of the 42nd annual Alaska Folk Festival on Sunday, close to 130 different acts will have taken the main stage at Centennial Hall plus 13 dance bands at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

Countless more workshops, events, and jams take place throughout the weekend, and it takes close to 100 volunteers to make everything happen.

I checked in with a few of the folks behind the scenes and made this audio postcard.

You heard music from the PFLAG Juneau Chorus, Mark Heard, and Collette Costa’s group “Spungadaminga.” For a live stream of the festival, which runs through Sunday night, schedules of all the free concerts and dances, and more festival coverage, click here.

The Carper Family of Austin, Texas, is the guest artist for the 42nd annual Alaska Folk Festival. The four-piece band debuts in Juneau on Thursday night at Centennial Hall.

Listen to this audio sampler with Beth Chrisman, who writes songs, sings and plays fiddle in the band.

The Carper Family’s first set is at 8 p.m. Thursday night. They’ll also lead workshops throughout the weekend, and will close the festival at 9 p.m. Sunday. For a live stream, festival schedule and more coverage, visit our Folk Fest page here.

The 14th annual Oratory Event is Saturday at the University of Alaska Southeast. The day-long event, based in Alaska Native languages, includes storytelling, speeches and dramatic presentations of poetry, songs and more.

“It’s really amazing to watch the students in action,” said Kolene James on a KTOO’s Juneau Afternoon. James is the director of the Native and Rural Student Center at UAS that organizes the event.

“They’re really passionate about their presentations. They really put their heart into their presentations and you can tell when they get up to the microphone, they just emote their energy, their love into their presentations. So it’s pretty inspiring,” said James.

Participants’ presentations must be between 5 and 15 minutes long and this year’s theme is equity.

“We have students who are talking about environmental issues, they’re talking about education and their concerns, they’re talking about the health care system and unmet needs in their home communities. We have students from all over Alaska who are attending UAS. We even have a student from Hawaii who is going to participate as well and there’s a lot of similarities in the inequities that we experience in both states, Hawaii and Alaska. This is a great opportunity to hear our college students, and if we have some brave high school students, what’s on their mind,” said James.

In the theme of equity, all participants will receive help with tuition. The free event begins at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Egan Lecture Hall.