Dragon Theatre gets new artistic directors

The couple has been involved with the theater for years in various capacities: Max Koknar’s first Bay Area audition was at the Dragon Theatre after moving from Ohio in 2009, and he’s been its education director since 2016; while Alika Spencer-Koknar, a Bay Area native, became the company manager a year later. She recently made her acting debut on Dragon’s stage in “Cirque Exotique du Monde,” for which she learned aerial acrobatics, just one of many circus elements that Dragon productions have been known to include and that the nonprofit’s new artistic directors are excited to continue. Max Koknar directed that production.

The couple also founded a small theater company of their own several years ago called Bindlepunks and Dragon provided space for their work.

“We work well together,” Alika Spencer-Koknar said, adding that they met as actors in a Renegade Theatre Experiment production of “A Clockwork Orange.” “I got to beat him up on stage [in that production] and romance ensued.”

Dragon Theatre is known for off-the-beaten-path theatrical performances and for providing a venue and mentorship for emerging Bay Area artists, two qualities that also define the backgrounds of the nonprofit’s new leaders.

Alika, 32, and Max, 32, have both trained in singing, dancing and acting, specifically in the Suzuki method of acting and in Butoh; and both have for years been performing, designing and directing immersive and site-specific theater, mixed media virtual reality and experimental and audience interactive theater, to name just a few genres beyond the traditional plays and musicals with which they also have extensive experience.

Alika has performed with a variety of theater companies throughout the Peninsula and has collaborated with many more, including the California Theater Center, Golden Thread, Epic Immersive and City Lights Theater Company. She is a graduate of the Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts.

Max Koknar studied computer science and engineering before he became a theater major at Ohio State University, where he studied mime with one of Marcel Marceau’s students. And while in college, he was also a circus-inspired street performer and fire breather at renaissance fairs.

“That’s where I learned art has to be entertaining,” Max said. “I lived off the tips I made there and instead of saying ‘if they get it, they get it’ I had to make sure what we do actually connects.”

Max has performed live for more than 500,000 people throughout his career, and his work has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, and it will also be included in the Sandbox Immersive Festival in Qingdao, China this summer.

He has also collaborated with Cirque du Soleil clowns, and the couple has been commissioned by tech companies, including Google and Apple, to create what they describe as private immersive experiences along with improvisation-based team building events to help employees work on their public speaking and presentation skills.

They’ve also devoted much of their time to theater education over the years, a major focus of Dragon Theater since its inception.

“We really appreciate how Dragon reaches out to local artists and helps new artists get their footing and we want to keep fostering new artists,” Alika said. “There’s such a plethora of artists in the Bay Area and it’s important to have a place for all of them to come together.”

The plan is to continue producing boundary-pushing theatrical productions incorporating just about every discipline you can think of and to offer more and more programming, including special events.

The couple hopes Dragon can play a central role in a burgeoning nightlife scene in Redwood City and attract people from all over the Bay Area, and of all demographics, especially the 20s crowd looking for entertainment after a night at the bar. Dragon’s current demographic consists largely of people in their 40s and 50s.

“Dragon has an incredible venue and it’s a wasted opportunity every time the lobby is closed and an event is not going on,” Max said. “We want to make it a gathering place in downtown Redwood City.”

For a sneak peak of Dragon’s upcoming season, the theater company will perform snippets from scenes from each show Aug. 4 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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