Daily Camera, CO
Nov 14 2008

Tara High School seniors explore Armenian culture in final production

By Mark Collins (Contact)
Friday, November 14, 2008

Maura Auster, for the Camera

Armenian Genocide Commemoration Committee Chairperson Kim
Christianian, far right, from the Armenians of Colorado, teaches Tara
Performing Arts High School students Carson Reid, 17, and Rachael
Surbaugh, 17, and Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the school
Laurel Fisher how to cook traditional Armenian food in preparation for
their upcoming play "Nine Armenians."

"Who likes to cook?" asks Kim Christianian.

Most of the students crowded into the kitchen at Boulder’s Tara School
for the Performing Arts raise their hands. Each is involved in Tara’s
upcoming production of the play "Nine Armenians."

Christianian is one of several local Armenian-Americans the Tara cast
has encountered to learn about different aspects of Armenian
culture. Today, Christianian is teaching the students how to make
cheese beoreg, an Armenian cheese turnover made with filo dough,
butter and various cheeses.

As the play portrays, much of Armenian culture revolves around food,
says Hasmik Nikoghosyan, a local Armenian-American woman who coached
the Tara actors on Armenian dialects used in "Nine Armenians."

"The celebration starts in the kitchen with the cooking process, and
goes all the way through the feast," Nikoghosyan says.

The cooking class is part of the intensive, hands-on learning that
often takes place through the avenue of theater at Tara, a private
four-year high school in Boulder. The past several weeks have been a
crash course in Armenian culture, customs and history.

"Armenia is right in the middle of the areas we hear of all the time
— between Georgia and Russia, and Iraq and Iran, and, of course,
Turkey," says director Laurel Fisher. "Yet no one knew that Armenia
was even there."

Through their own research, the Tara cast members uncovered a range of
information, like the fact that in 301 Armenia became the first
Christian nation, and that actress/singer Cher is Armenian-American.

"Nine Armenians," first staged off-Broadway in 1996, is about three
generations of an Armenian-American family living in New Jersey. Ani,
a 21-year-old, begins to wonder what her grandparents’ life was like
in the old country, and what really happened during the Armenian
Genocide in the early 20th century. She visits Armenia and returns a
changed woman.

The genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in two periods between
1915 and 1923, wiped out as many as 1.5 million Armenians. It’s
considered the first modern genocide, as the Turkish government used
modern technology — the telegraph — to orchestrate the slaughter.

According to papers at the Armenian National Institute, Adolf Hitler
in part justified his quest to erase the Jews during World War II with
this sentiment: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of
the Armenians?"

After researching the genocide, Tara senior Seth Wenger, 17, wanted to
play the grandfather, a genocide survivor, in "Nine Armenians."

"I decided I wanted to play him just because of how personally I felt
about the genocide," he says.

"Nine Armenians," though, isn’t a brooding tragedy. It’s filled with
laughter and love and food, Armenian-style.

"There’s a real passion and heat in the Armenian culture," says
Christianian, a chairperson for the Armenian Genocide Commemoration
Committee in Colorado. "It’s this joy of life; of living, of tasting,
of breathing, of dancing. There’s a real revelry."

And even though their dialect is unique and their recipes may call for
more lemon than most, Armenians share much with other cultures, it
turns out.

"A lot of it is really humorous," says Carson Reid, 17, who plays
Ani. "It’s this big, loud, loving, argumentative family. They’re
always crossing paths and not getting along and loving each other so
much anyway. That’s something that happens in almost any family."

That includes the family of seniors at Tara. There are nine of them
this year, and "Nine Armenians" is their final senior production. Each
is cast in one of the roles in the play.

Fisher has directed most of the cast through four years at Tara. She
noticed something when she chose to produce "Nine Armenians" with the
group of teens.

"Like the characters in the play," Fisher says, "they have a hard time
leaving each other, they argue incessantly, but love and care for each
other at the same time."

nov/14/family-feel/