Autry National Center

Theater

Native Voices at the Autry

Salvage (2008)

• Past Productions
• Theater Staff

Mission Statement

Native Voices at the Autry is devoted to developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American playwrights.

History

Native Voices at the Autry is devoted to developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American playwrights. It was established in 1999 to provide a supportive and collaborative setting for Native American playwrights and actors from across the U.S. and Canada to both develop their work and see it fully realized. Since 1999, Native Voices has produced Urban Tattoo, Jump Kiss, The Buz’Gem Blues, Please Do Not Touch the Indians, Kino & Teresa, Stone Heart, The Red Road, The Berlin Blues, SUPER INDIAN, and Teaching Disco Square Dancing to Our Elders: A Class Presentation. In addition, Native Voices has held over 70 workshops and public staged readings of new plays by Native American playwrights featuring Native American actors.

Native Voices at the Autry produces under an Equity contract and is a member of LA Stage Alliance; a member theater of TYA/USA, the national organization for Theater for Young Audiences; and a Constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theater.

Young Native Voices: Theater Education Project
(Formerly Native Voices Young Playwrights Project)

For the past seven years, Young Native Voices: Theater Education Project has provided workshops and residencies for Native American youths at the Southern California Indian Center and the American Indian Clubhouse. Playwrights are paired with professional mentors for an intensive playwriting or theater workshop, culminating in public staged readings of their plays. To date, forty-five new plays have been written as part of the project. In 2005, Young Native Voices expanded to include reservation outreach. That year, Native Voices theater artists and mentors were in residence at the Coeur d'Alene Schitsu'umsh Reservation in Idaho, working with students to create and perform ten 10-minute plays at six different venues, including the University of Idaho, the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, North Idaho College, and the Museum of Arts and Culture. In 2006, they were in residence for a month at the Sycuan Reservation in San Diego County, where they worked with thirty-seven students from the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation. Students participated in daily theater workshops and created a full production of three traditional Kumeyaay stories featuring Kumeyaay language, song, and dance.

Reservation Outreach

In 2005, the Native Voices Young Playwrights Project was held for the first time outside Los Angeles, traveling to the Coeur d'Alene Reservation in Idaho. On November 11, 2005, Native American Stewardship Council (NASC) member Jeanne Givens sat down with Duane King, executive director of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Scott Kratz, the Autry National Center's director of programs, and Marlene Head, associate director of publications, to talk about the students' experiences.

Annual Playwrights Retreat & Festival of New Plays

Each year, a select number of beginning, emerging, and established Native playwrights are invited to participate in a weeklong retreat in Southern California. Playwrights are paired with professional directors, dramaturgs, actors, and designers to further the development of one of their works. The week culminates in a staged reading of each of the plays for a public audience. Selected playwrights receive an honorarium, round trip airfare to California, plus lodging. Past retreats have been held at the Autry National Center, Los Angeles; University of California, Los Angeles; Occidental College, Los Angeles; San Diego State University, San Diego; and the La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla. Please click here for information on how to apply to this event.