By Rob Schmidt 

A Native version of Romeo and Juliet.  Lewis and Clark from Sacagawea’s point of view.  A commodity cheese-based superhero with a talking-dog sidekick.

When you think of Native storytelling, you think of movies (Dances with Wolves, Smoke Signals),   books (Black Elk Speaks, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven), even cartoons and comic books.  What you don’t think of is the Native  theater, and plays that can stand the test of time.  But Los Angeles-based Native Voices, an Equity theater company devoted to Native American plays, is trying to change that. 

Since 2001, Native Voices has mounted eight  Equity productions.  Several have gone on to other locations and been published.  The program has helped hundreds of budding Natives playwrights hone their skills and begin crafting scripts.

Enviable Record 
Non-Native theaters have produced plays by Native playwrights before.  Several theater companies around the country are trying to stage Native plays on a regular basis.  But Native Voices is different.  It’s “the only professional Equity theater company in the United States devoted to developing and producing Native American theater,” says Randy Reinholz (Choctaw), the producing artistic director. 

Native Voices has an enviable record of success.  Its productions include: 

• Diane Glancy’s Jump Kiss: An Indian Legend  (world premiere) and Stone Heart  (world premiere)
• Joseph A. Dandurand’s Please Do Not Touch the Indians  (world premiere)
• Drew Hayden Taylor's The Baby Blues  (American premiere at Centre Stage of Pennsylvania), The Buz’Gem Blues  (West Coast premiere), and The Berlin Blues  (world premiere)
• James Lujan’s Kino & Teresa  (world premiere)
• Arigon Starr's  The Red Road  (world premiere) and SUPER INDIAN  (radio series)
• Marie Clements’s one-woman show Urban Tattoo  (world premiere) 

The program’s roots go back to 1994.  Co-directors Reinholz and Jean Bruce Scott, then at Illinois State University, wanted to produce a Native play.  In 1995, they came to L.A. to serve on the Autry Museum of Western Heritage’s advisory council for its “Powerful Images” exhibit.  They brought their interest in Native theater with them. 

The Autry people asked Scott and Reinholz for feedback.  “One of the things that was missing was live performance,” says Scott, the producing executive director.  “And so they said, well, what would you suggest?  So we submitted three plays, and they chose Urban Tattoo  by Marie Clements, which was a one-woman show.  And we produced that along with the exhibit and we traveled it.” 

The couple agreed to produce theater for the Autry, first as a pilot project and then permanently.  “The Autry said, ‘Why don’t we do this on a regular basis?’” says Scott.  “So they invited us to submit a three-year proposal for a theater initiative here at the Autry, called Native Voices at the Autry.  And we jumped at the chance to call this our artistic home.” 

“It’s been a good win-win,” says Reinholz.  “We were the project to get the Autry its first National Endowment of the Arts funding and recognition.”  “And their first Ford Foundation grant,” says Scott.  “So we’ve been good for them and they’ve been great for us,” finishes Reinholz. 

How it Works 
Every year Native Voices puts out a call for plays. Professionals read and score each script, then channel it into one of three paths.  This gives playwrights at different levels of development several chances to advance. 

The first opportunity is the playwrights’ retreat in May or June, says Scott, “where we start to develop brand-new plays.”  Five people get invited to the retreat each year for intensive work on their scripts.  Mentors and dramaturges guide the writing process. 

Those who aren’t selected can participate at the retreat as day-writers.  These people work with the invited scribes, attend workshops, and write scenes.  Arigon Starr, the singer/songwriter/actor who has earned praise for her one-woman show The Red Road,  began this way. 

The second opportunity is the Festival of New Plays in November.  “Those plays are closer to making it to a main stage somewhere,” says Scott.  They’ve “usually have had a little bit of development already, either at Native Voices or someplace else, and they’re ready for the next step.” 

Finally, there’s a March deadline for Equity productions.  These are plays developed in-house or elsewhere that are ready for professional staging. 

Even if a play isn’t ready for the retreat, Native Voices can help.  “We also have individual . . . workshops and readings throughout the year,” says Scott, where “we can bring a play in and actually give it its first . . . read-through with professional actors and a director and start that process of development.” 

Scott encourages any Native who can write down an idea for a play to submit it to: 

Autry National Center
4700 Western Heritage Way
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Attn: Native Voices (Write “submission” on the envelope)  

From an Idea to the Stage 
Unlike Greek goddesses, plays don’t spring fully formed from a creator’s brow.  Rather, they result from long hours of revising and rewriting.  Native Voices is devoted to assisting Native playwrights through the development process. 

“One of the things that we discovered,” says Scott, “is that they had terrific initial ideas, and pretty good execution of those original ideas, but then the plays languished in somebody’s drawer because major theater companies were not willing to devote the time or the money to developing the piece to actual production.”  Doing this became the program’s goal. 

Writers are often performers, notes Scott, at least in their own minds.  “In the privacy of their room they’re playing every role.  And so they’re writing the line and the line is coming out perfectly every time because they’re the actor playing the part.” 

The development process introduces the playwright to actors who read the play or do a skeletal staging.  The actors may read a line “in an entirely different way,” observes Scott.  “And it’s got a different meaning.  The tone somehow makes it sound different.  And so the playwright starts to hear this and then say, wait a minute, that’s not what I intend in that particular part of the play.” 

The process is usually revealing.  For example, Drew Hayden Taylor submitted The  Berlin Blues  for the playwrights’ retreat.  “Drew is famous for actually writing a script and getting it on the page and then not changing anything,” says Scott.  “And so part of the criteria for him to even participate in the playwrights’ retreat was a solemn promise that he in fact would come and be open to the process. 

“Well, he came and he was actually overwhelmed by the process.  And he did quite a bit of rewriting.  He fine-tuned the script quite a bit, and was into the whole revision idea.” 

Even after its world premiere, Taylor is still tinkering with the play, pondering scenes to add or subtract.  

Spreading Their Wings 
Besides producing its own plays, Native Voices is collaborating with theater entities such as the Kennedy Center’s New Visions/New Voices program.  Another partnership has led to the production of radio plays. 

“Three years ago, we formed collaboration with Native American Public Telecommunications to create a new project called the Native Radio Theater Project,” says Scott.  “Last year we went to the National Audio Theater Festival with three plays written by Native playwrights and we were able to fund 33 Native American artists in radio and theater to go and work on those plays at this festival.  And we produced three shows:  The Best Place in the World to Grow Pumpkins,  the pilot for SUPER INDIAN,  and another play called Melba’s Medicine.” 

In short, Native Voices is flourishing, which is no mean feat for a theater company.  It’s now an established presence in Los Angeles and a growing influence elsewhere.  It’s reached the point where Scott and Reinholz can start planning ahead. 

“We’re almost to the place where we’re what they call 18 months out in our development and production slate,” says Scott.  “So we have productions already for 2008 that haven’t been announced yet officially, but we know that we are going to be producing them.  And we have two or three behind each of those that we’re thinking about for 2009.” 

Not only is Native Voices developing plays, it’s developing careers.  “Native Voices helped put me on the map,” says James Lujan, who wrote Kino & Teresa.  “It brought me a newfound sense of respect for my creative efforts from friends, family, and colleagues which continues to this day and for that I’ll always be grateful.” 

“Native Voices at the Autry has enabled me to use all of my talents,” says Arigon Starr.  “Everyone knew me as a singer/songwriter, but it took the vision of Randy Reinholz and Jean Bruce Scott to harness my acting and writing talents.  Native Voices is a place for all Native artists to spread their wings and fly!” 

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For more information on past and upcoming productions, please visit:  Native Voices at the Autry Center