Native Voices at the Autry Presents 25th Annual Festival of New Plays

Native Voices at the Autry, America's leading Native American theatre company, presents its 25th Annual Festival of New Plays at the Autry Museum of the American Westand La Jolla Playhouse. The festival features staged readings of new and in-progress plays by Native writers followed by talkbacks in which each audience member becomes an important part of the collaborative process.

"New play development is such a rewarding endeavor," said Jean Bruce Scott, Native Voices Producing Executive Director. "You get to work on new scripts with experienced directors, designers, dramaturgs, and cast members who are fully committed to showing the playwright what they've got on the page-and how it might look on the stage. At Native Voices, we get to share that work with both Autry and La Jolla Playhouse audiences, who are vital to the playwright's success by allowing them to hear how the language, structure, story, and themes are working. Along the way, the playwrights work with their dramaturgs to rewrite and revise their scripts, fine tuning them for future production."

A ten-day residency preceding Native Voices' highly respected festival brings together beginning, emerging, and established Native American Playwrights who are partnered with nationally-recognized directors, dramaturgs, designers, and an acting company of exceptional Native American actors to explore their scripts. In recent years, the American stage has seen an explosion of Native Theatre produced by prestigious theatre companies across the country. Many of these plays and playwrights developed their talents and work through the Native Voices Annual Playwrights Retreat and Festival of New Plays, including Pure Native (2019), Bingo Hall (2018), Fairly Traceable (2017), and They Don't Talk Back (2016). They continue to excite new audiences and demonstrate that changing the stories we tell can change the culture of an art form, its artists, institutions, and audiences.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Native Voices at the Autry is proud to contribute to the success of the field by supporting new work and championing Native playwrights and theater artists. This year the theatre company also received the Gordon Davidson Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Los Angeles Theatrical Community from the LA Drama Critics Circle.

The Festival of New Plays is free but reservations are recommended. For reservations and additional information, visit TheAutry.org/NativeVoices

About the Featured Readings and Authors

Quantum by Tara Moses (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma)
Ivy Johnson, a young woman of color adopted by an African American father and Mexican American mother, discovers her real identity and is shocked by the injustices and questions from her past that no one can explain.

Tara Moses (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma) is a director and playwright. Much of her work explores the Indigenous Identity of the past and present, and Quantum is no exception. Her latest play Bound was last seen in May at the Theater for the New City with AMERINDA making her NYC directing and playwriting debut. She is a 2018/19 fellow with the Intercultural Leadership Institute, the recipient of the Thomas C. Fichandler Award, and proud associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. She holds a B.A. in theatre from the University of Tulsa. www.taramoses.com.

Readings:
The Autry: Wednesday, May 29, 4:00 p.m.
La Jolla Playhouse: Saturday, June 1, 1:00 p.m.

Flowers of Hawaii by Lee Catluna (Native Hawaiian)
An extended Hawaiian family tackles the emotional ups and downs of life and its rites of passage told intergenerationally in this contemporary play powerfully brought together by a grandmother's cherished china.

Lee Cataluna's (Native Hawaiian) most recent play is Home of the Brave commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse for their 2018 POP tour. Her books include Folks You Meet in Longs, Three Years on Doreen's Sofa, and the children's book Ordinary Ohana. Her play The Great Kauai Train Robbery is based on the true story of her great uncle, a sheriff who was wrongly convicted of Hawaii's only train heist. She received the Cades Award for Literature in 2004 and has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside. She is descended from the Kainoapukaline of Mana, Kauai.

Readings:
The Autry: Wednesday, May 29, 7:30 p.m.
La Jolla Playhouse: Saturday, June 1, 4:00 p.m.

Missing Peace by Kalani Queypo (Blackfeet and Hawaiian) and Kyle Puccia (Seneca)
Chase, a handsome and charismatic patient wakes up from a coma without any memory of who he is or his past life. As his memory returns so do the dark secrets he's tried to bury. Forcing him to ask - is it possible to have a second chance at happiness?

For his winning screenplay, the SCIC Creative Spirit Contest awarded Kalani Queypo (Blackfeet / Hawaiian) $10,000 to produce and direct his short film. Ancestor Eyes went on to play at nearly 40 festivals and won 14 awards including the Rhode Island International Film Festival's Directorial Discovery Award. As an actor, Queypo can be seen in the Oscar-nominated Terrence Malick film The New World, Steven Spielberg's Emmy-winning Into the West and Slow West (Sundance GRAND JURY PRIZE). Television credits include Fear the Walking Dead, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, Bones, Hawaii Five-0, and a critically acclaimed performance as Squanto in Saints & Strangers. Queypo is currently shooting the third Season of Jamestown with the producers of Downton Abbey for the PBS Network.

Kyle Puccia (Seneca) is an LA based songwriter, composer and musician. His most notable co-write, "Kids in Love" debuted at #1 on Billboard's Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart. He also has 7 cuts on Sony Music artist Miss Li's 2018 Swedish Grammy nominated album, A Woman's Guide To Survival. Puccia's songs have also charted on Billboard's Top 40 Hot Dance Club Play & Top 10 UK Commercial Pop Charts. He has composed dozens of scores for Microsoft commercials and has garnered song placements on such TV shows/films/brands as HBO (promo), Legacies (CW), World Of Dance (NBC), Love Island (itv2), Siesta Key (MTV), Pretty Little Liars (ABC Family), The Vineyard (ABC Family), Tori & Dean, Home Sweet Hollywood (Oxygen), DTLA (LOGO), The Masked Saint (feature film) and Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List (feature film). Puccia's original indie-pop musical, Hipster Sweatshop, is currently being made into a feature film. Also of note, he has music-directed and created vocal arrangements for LA and NYC workshop productions of Rock Of Ages and Romy & Michele's High School Reunion, The Musical.

Readings:
The Autry: Thursday, May 30, 7:30 p.m.
La Jolla Playhouse: Sunday, June 2, 1:00 p.m.

Visit TheAutry.org/NativeVoices for more information.

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