ANCHORAGE - Perseverance Theatre of Juneau continues its Anchorage season this week with an eccentric musical, "Bigfoot and Other Lost Souls," a semi-autobiographical account of a frustrated actress who decides to pursue a documentary on the legendary creature in the woods of California.

Several years ago, New York City director Elizabeth Lucas met the writers, including a Tony Award-winning composer, and they contacted her when Perseverance decided to produce the play, initially staged in Juneau last year.

"It is fictionalized, of course. It is condensed and expanded, and characters are combined to make a good story for the stage. But everything's based on true life."

Lead actress Rachel Landon, who has been splitting her time between Skagway and Duluth, Minnesota, said that while the musical is offbeat and funny, there are deep moments, too.

"I'm connected to my character, and I feel like she goes through some really dark moments because of her past catching up to her -- her inability to connect with people, her inability to truly have faith in people and faith in anything."

Although the play is set in California, the company feels that there is an Alaskan feel in the theme of seeking.

Lucas said, "I get a sense that Alaskans are seekers, in a way, as is the main character in this show -- looking for something, getting out into the landscape and trying to understand either yourself or whatever that thing is you're searching for."

"They talk about how the Bigfoot can travel all over the world, how there's thousands of them we don't know about,” Landon said. “But they use tunnels to get from place to place, and they even talk about at one point that there's a tunnel from California all the way up to Alaska."

Alaska might or might not have Bigfoot, but it's got the world premiere of the musical bearing his name.

There’s a pay-as-you-can preview Thursday night at the PAC. The show runs for two weekends.

To view web-extra videos of lead actress Rachel Landon and director Elizabeth Lucas discussing the world premiere of the musical comedy, click here.