Native Voices at the Autry Presents Annual "Playwrights Retreat and Festival" June 26, 2010

NATIVE VOICES AT THE AUTRY PRESENTS ANNUAL
“PLAYWRIGHTS RETREAT AND FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAYS”
CULMINATING WITH PUBLIC READINGS
IN LOS ANGELES

Saturday, June 26, 1 PM and
Sunday, June 27, 1 PM and 4 PM
followed by Panel Discussion on “Modern Natives in Media” at 6 PM

AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER (LOS ANGELES)

Native Voices at the Autry, America's leading Native American theater company, continues its tradition of excellence in developing works by new and established Native American playwrights at its highly regarded PLAYWRIGHTS RETREAT AND FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAYS, culminating in public readings of three new works on Saturday, June 26, 2010, 1 PM, and Sunday, June 27, 1 PM and 4 PM, at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles. A special panel discussion entitled “Modern Natives in Media” featuring noted members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Directors Guild of America (DGA) and Writers Guild of America (WGA) concludes the festival on June 27 at 6 PM. (The retreat is held at San Diego State University, and earlier readings of the plays take place at the La Jolla Playhouse.)

Established in 2004, Native Voices' PLAYWRIGHTS RETREAT AND FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAYS provides the opportunity during a week-long retreat for beginning, emerging and established Native American playwrights to work closely in shaping their plays with nationally recognized directors, dramaturgs and an acting company comprised of exceptional Native American actors, culminating in public readings. Many works developed during this project, hosted by Native Voices in conjunction with La Jolla Playhouse and San Diego State University, have gone on to enjoy successful runs on the Autry main stage and elsewhere, including Native Voices' 2009-10 season opener Carbon Black and its upcoming mainstage production of The Frybread Queen in March 2011.

The plays being workshopped at the retreat and featured at the 2010 New Festival of Plays include TOMBS OF THE VANISHING INDIAN by Marie Clements (Métis*). Directed by Seema Sueko, it is a contemporary tragedy that converges the dreams, blood and tears of three separated Indian sisters against the backdrop of the political, cultural and social currents of 1970s Los Angeles. Clements is an award-winning performer, playwright, director, screenwriter, producer, and co-director of Frog Girl Films and the newly formed Red Diva Projects. She has written a dozen plays, including Copper Thunderbird, Burning Vision, and The Unnatural and Accidental Women, which have been presented on some of the most prestigious stages in Canada and internationally, garnering numerous awards, including the 2004 Canada-Japan Literary Award and two short-listed nominations for the Governor General’s Literary Award. As a director, she is currently working on her feature film, Tombs, and the premiere of her performance work, The Road Forward, commissioned by the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

Working with Clements as dramaturg is Brian Quirt, artistic director of Nightswimming in Toronto, Canada, and dramaturg for the theatre company’s City of Wine project (Ned Dickens’ seven-play cycle), who is also past-president of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and a two-time recipient of LMDA's Elliott Hayes Award for Dramaturgy. Director Sueko is the artistic director of Mo’oleo Performing Arts Company.

TIME IMMEMORIAL, written by Jack Dalton (Yup'ik*) and Allison Warden (Inupiaq*) and directed by Jere Hodgin is a clever retelling of how the world was made. Dalton has grown up an ambassador between two worlds, his Yup'ik Inuit and European heritages. A professional storyteller, actor, writer, and teacher, he received the first Expressive Arts Grant from the National Museum of the American Indian. He has created and produced five theatrical works of storytelling; written a book; co-wrote and starred in the play Raven’s Radio Hour; performed internationally in France, Denmark and Australia; headlined the Scottish International Storytelling Festival; and has received grants to co-write and star in two plays, Time Immemorial and Cauyaqa Nauwa: Where Is My Drum? He is currently writing his fourth play, Assimilation. Warden is a performance artist who recently developed the performance art piece, Wait, Let Me Finish Putting On My Armor, for “virtual subsistence,” a show she helped co-curate at the MTS Gallery in Anchorage, Alaska. As a playwright, she co-wrote and co-starred in Time Immemorial with Jack Dalton at Native Voices at the Autry in spring 2009. She's also a rapper, who performs under the name of Aku-matu, and is about to release an album, using her own beats and sampling traditional native music and sounds. She has been touring her one-woman show, Ode to the Polar Bear, for the past two years and recently reworked it into a longer piece with TeAda Productions in Los Angeles.

The dramaturg working with Dalton and Warden is Robert Caisley, associate professor of theatre & film and head of the Dramatic Writing Program at the University of Idaho, who served as Idaho Repertory Theatre’s artistic director from 2001- 2004. Director Hodgin was for 20 years the producing artistic director of Mill Mountain Theatre, where he founded the nationally recognized Norfolk Southern New Play Festival. He served as artistic director and co-producer of Highlands Playhouse in North Carolina and has served as a National Endowment for the Arts site visitor and a member of the NEA Creativity Panels for multiple years.

ON THE MANGLED BEAM by Dawn Jamieson (Cayuga*) and directed by Stephen Metcalfe portrays heroic efforts made by Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) ironworkers in the aftermath of the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center. Jamieson is an educator, actor and playwright whose acting credits include the Broadway shows Inherit the Wind (George C. Scott, Charles Durning) and The Price (Eli Wallach, Hector Elizondo). Among her film credits are The Reawakening (Michael Greyeyes, Gordon Tootoosis) and Ivory (Martin Landau, Peter Stormare). As a playwright, she has penned Silent Quest, a drama about the hunt for a sexually abusive priest, and The Escape of the Potted Plant, a comedic adventure about an FBI undercover operation. Jamieson holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Michigan State University and a Masters in education from Columbia University. She is a member of American Indian Artists, Inc. (AMERINDA), Times Square Playwrights, AEA, SAG and AFTRA.

Working with Jamieson is dramaturg Julie Jensen, the resident playwright at Salt Lake Acting Company and the recipient of the Kennedy Center Award for New American Plays, the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work, and the LA Weekly Award for Best New Play. Director Metcalfe's plays have been produced in New York and at regional theaters through the United States as well as in Europe and Japan. He is a guest teacher in dramatic writing at University of California at San Diego, University of San Diego and San Diego State University and was a contributing writer on the motion pictures Pretty Women, Arachnophobia, It Could Happen to You, and Mr. Holland's Opus.

Jamieson is also one of the featured panelists participating in the discussion “Modern Natives in Media.” Other panelists include DGA director Chris Eyre (Cheyenne-Arapaho*), whose credits include the films Smoke Signals and Edge of America as well as the award-winning PBS mini-series We Shall Remain: Parts I-III; actress DeLanna Studi (Cherokee*), who serves as Chair of SAG President’s National Task Force for American Indians and was also in the cast of the first Broadway National Tour of August: Osage County, the films Edge of America and The Only Good Indian and the Hallmark/ABC mini-series Dreamkeeper. Also sitting on the panel are WGA/W American Indian Writers Committee Chair Micah Wright (Muskogee Creek*), author of the political commentary books You Back The Attack, We’ll Bomb Who We Want, If You’re Not a Terrorist, Then Stop Asking Questions, and Surveillance Means Security!; WGA/W member and AIWC Vice Chair Jason Gavin (Blackfeet*), whose television credits include such hits as Greek, Friday Night Lights, Royal Pains, and According to Jim; and WGA/W and AIWC member Larissa Fasthorse (Lakota, Sicangu Nation*), writer/co-creator of the N Network series Lakota Falls and writer of the Fox pilot The Line, whose play Teaching Disco Square Dancing To Our Elders was presented by Native Voices. Serving as moderator is SAG PTFAI member Kalani Queypo (Hawaiian, Blackfeet*), actor in the Oscar-nominated film, The New World and PBS mini-series and Into The West as well as writer/director of the award-winning short-film Ancestor Eyes.

Native Voices at the Autry, celebrating its 10th Anniversary Season, is led by Founder/Producing Artistic Director Randy Reinholz (Choctaw*) and Founder/Producing Executive Director Jean Bruce Scott and is the country’s only Equity theater company dedicated exclusively to producing new works by Native American playwrights and performed by Native actors. It maintains successful long-term relationships with New York's The Public Theater, Native American Public Telecommunications (NAPT), Washington's Kennedy Center and La Jolla Playhouse.

FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAYS SCHEDULE

Tombs of the Vanishing Indian
Written by Maria Clements (Métis*)
Directed by Seema Sueko
Dramaturgy by Brian Quirt
Staged readings:
Saturday, June 26, 2010, 1 PM, at Autry National Center
A contemporary tragedy that converges the dreams, blood and tears of three separated Indian sisters against the backdrop of the political, cultural and social currents of 1970s Los Angeles.
Admission: $10; students/seniors/military $5
For reservations: NativeVoices@theAutry.org

Time Immemorial
Written by Jack Dalton (Yup'ik*) and Allison Warden (Inupiaq*)
Directed by Jere Hodgin
Dramaturgy by Robert Caisley
Staged readings:
Sunday, June 27, 1 PM, at Autry National Center
Long, long ago, there was the light. And then there were Tula and Miti. And then… history happened. A clever retelling of how the world was made, perfect for the whole family.
Admission: $10; students/seniors/military $5
For reservations: NativeVoices@theAutry.org

On the Mangled Beam
Written by Dawn Jamieson (Cayuga*)
Directed by Stephen Metcalfe
Dramaturgy by Julie Jensen
Staged readings:
Sunday, June 27, 2010, 4 PM, at Autry National Center
Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) ironworkers have made legendary contributions to the building and rebuilding of New York City. This is the story of the heroic efforts they made in the aftermath of 9/11 and the destruction of the World Trade Center, and of the women who courageously stood beside them.
Admission: $10; students/seniors/military $5
For reservations: NativeVoices@theAutry.org

The Autry National Center of the American West is located at 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, CA, 90027-1462. The La Jolla Playhouse is located at 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037. To purchase tickets, call (323) 667-2000, ext. 354 or visit www.NativeVoicesattheAutry.org.