Native Voices at the Autry Announce NATIVE AMERICAN ATHLETES TAKE THE FIELD Short Play Festival

Native Voices at the Autry continues its vital role as the country's only equity theatre company dedicated exclusively to developing the work of Native American Playwrights with its Short Play Festival, featuring six engaging short plays written by veteran and first-time playwrights, on Saturday, November 3, 3 pm, at the Wells Fargo Theatre at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles.

The festival's theme, "Indians in America: Native American Athletes Take The Field," honors the 100th anniversary of Jim Thorpe's (Sac and Fox*) Olympics achievements. Thorpe, described as the greatest athlete of the 20th Century, won Olympic gold medals in 1912 for both the pentathlon and the decathlon and played professional football, baseball and basketball. Each of the six plays range from five to fifteen minutes in length and has a sports theme, inspired by a charcoal drawing of Thorpe that was donated to Native Voices by noted artist/author Christopher Canole (Sac & Fox*). One of the plays will be selected for the 2012 Von Marie Atchley Excellence in Playwriting Award, a $1000 cash prize, by a national panel of judges.

The featured plays are:

SOCCER DAD by GARY HARRINGTON (Comanche*), who holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and has written, produced and directed short films for more than ten years. The play involves a man at his son's soccer game recalling his own experiences playing sports in Oklahoma amidst discrimination, and he begins to recognize the connecting force that sports plays in his family.

THE RECORD HOLDERS by DENNIS TIBBETTS (Ojibwe*), who served in Vietnam and earned a Ph.D. in counseling using the G.I. Bill. In his play, Truman Gordon is a track legend at his old university, and Jaiden Fairbanks is the young athlete expected to break Gordon's 30-year-old record. Though they are a generation apart, they soon find that their stories of struggle are not all that different.

STICKS by Bret Jones (Muscogee Creek*), director of theatre at Wichita State University. Jones' play tells the story of three old friends who reunite for a game of stickball, once a simple game that now weighs heavily as the baggage from their adult lives seeps into this not-so-friendly match.

CHAMP by LUCAS ROWLEY (Inupiaq*), a member of the Alaska Native Playwrights Project and an avid hunter and fisherman who takes pride in his traditional subsistence lifestyle. In Champ, a young gamer, while practicing for a video game competition, tries to convince his grandfather, a Vietnam vet, that video games are a sport and that they, too, can have a positive impact on their lives.

THEY SHOOT BASKETBALLS, DON'T THEY? by attorney and first-time playwright CLAUDE A. JACKSON JR. (Pima/Hopi Indian*). The play is about Robert, an NBA scout, who first meets Mugsy, a short, no-name Pima basketball player, and at first he doesn't think much of his game. But if Mugsy and his coach play their cards right, the scout could be in for a big surprise.

HOME OF THE RUNNING BRAVE by DARRELL DENNIS (Shuswap*), an accomplished playwright whose one-man show, Tales of an Urban Indian, was nominated for two Dora Awards, toured Canada and was produced by New York's Public Theatre and Native Voices at the Autry. In the play, Tom Harding has wanted to be an Olympic runner ever since he was young. Now that he's got the chance, he wants to run under the sovereign flag of his tribal nation, but the Olympic Committee has other ideas.

The Short Play Festival, held in conjunction with the Autry American Indian Arts Marketplace, is free with admission to the Autry American Indian Arts Marketplace ($12, $8 for students, seniors and children; free for Autry members).

Native Voices at the Autry, a constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), is made possible in part by grants and support from Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Arts Commission; National Endowment for the Arts; Edison International; Nissan; San Manuel Band of Mission Indians; Wells Fargo; and Judith Jacobs Foundation.

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