Download la jolla playhouse names native voices as 2016/2017 resident

2910 La Jolla Village Drive La Jolla, CA 92037
www.LaJollaPlayhouse.org
Contact: Becky Biegelsen
(858) 228-3094; [email protected]
LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE NAMES NATIVE VOICES
AS 2016/2017 RESIDENT THEATRE COMPANY
RESIDENCY TO FEATURE PRESENTATION OF
FRANK HENRY KAASH KATASSE’S THEY DON’T TALK BACK,
DIRECTED BY PLAYHOUSE LEADERSHIP COUNCIL MEMBER RANDY REINHOLZ
LA JOLLA, CA — La Jolla Playhouse announces Native Voices as its 2016/2017 resident
theatre company. Spearheaded by Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley, the
Resident Theatre Program aims to encourage the artistic development of rising performing
arts organizations, while advancing and contributing to the San Diego and Southern California
theatre scene as a whole.
As part of the residency, La Jolla Playhouse will present Native Voices at the Autry’s production
of They Don’t Talk Back, by Frank Henry Kaash Katasse (Tlingit), directed by Native Voices
co-founder and Playhouse Leadership Council member Randy Reinholz (Choctaw), in
association with Alaska’s Perseverence Theatre. The show will run in the Playhouse’s
Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre May 27 – June 19.
In Katasse’s provocative new play, a troubled teen from a broken home receives the culture
shock of a lifetime when he is sent to live and work with his Tlingit grandparents in a remote
fishing village in Alaska. This funny, heartfelt exploration of the meaning of family and life
emerges in a contemporary coming-of-age story. [Tickets to They Don’t Talk Back will go on
sale in the spring. Please visit LaJollaPlayhouse.org or call (858) 550-1010 for more
information.]
“Having worked with Native Voices for nearly a decade on their annual Festival of New Plays,
it’s extremely gratifying to forge a deeper relationship with them as our latest Resident Theatre
Company and help them expand their roots in the San Diego community,” said La Jolla
Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley.
The Resident Theatre Program is an annual appointment at La Jolla Playhouse. Previous
resident theatre companies have included Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company, Moxie
Theatre, San Diego Asian American Repertory Theater, Eveoke Dance Theatre, Teatro
Máscara Mágica and Circle Circle Dot Dot.
The Resident Theatre Program is part of La Jolla Playhouse’s overall commitment to fostering
artistic relationships and the development of new work. The Playhouse seeks to nurture both
established and up-and-coming playwrights, directors, designers and performers who are
impacted by – and who, in turn, impact – our culture. By offering these artists resources and
opportunities, such as the Artist-in-Residence program, commissions, readings,
workshops, as well as the Page To Stage Play Development Program, the DNA New Work
Series, the Without Walls program, and others, the Playhouse has become the place to look
for what’s next in American theatre.
Frank Henry Kaash Katasse is an Alaska Native from the Tlingit clan Tsaagweidí. Katasse is
an actor, director, producer, improviser, and playwright who received his Bachelor’s Degree in
Theatre Arts from the University of Hawaii, Mānoa in 2008. While in Hawai’i Katasse worked
with Kennedy Theatre, Kumu Kahua Theatre, and the Cruel Theatre. In 2008 Katasse moved
back to Juneau, Alaska and was first involved with Perseverance Theatre (PT) with the
Mainstage production of The Government Inspector. His body of work as an actor also includes
world premieres of Alaska Native-themed plays Battles of Fire and Water, Reincarnation of
Stories, Cedar House, and Our Voices Will Be Heard. Other mainstage shows include The Skin
of our Teeth, Oklahoma!, and Chicago. Frank was also involved with PT’s 2nd Stage as a
director/ producer of Vashon, and as a performer in Marisol for the University of Alaska,
Southeast. In Juneau, Katasse has performed with Theatre in the Rough, Juneau Symphony,
and Morally Improv-erished. Katasse is currently the Board President of Juneau-Douglas Little
Theatre. Katasse is the proud recipient of the 2015 Von Marie Atchley Excellence in Playwriting
Award from Native Voices at the Autry for his short play Reeling. In 2015 Katasse had his play
Bear in Stream read at the Leviathan Lab in NYC.
Randy Reinholz is co-founder of Native Voices at the Autry. An accomplished producer,
director, playwright and actor, he has produced and directed over 75 plays directing productions
nationally and internationally at Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles, La Jolla Playhouse,
Public Theatre in New York, National Museum of the American Indian in New York and
Washington D.C, Idyllwild Arts, CA, The Gilcrease Museum, OK, The Cherokee Casino, The
Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, The 30th International Theatre Institute World Congress,
for United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization Tampico, Tamaulipas,
Mexico, 16th ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival in Adelaide, Australia, and
Queensland State Library, Brisbane, Australia, and University productions for Cornell University,
Duke University, University of Miami Ohio, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Illinois State
University and San Diego State University where he served as Head of Acting, then Director for
the School of Theater, Television and Film and as Director of Community Engagement and
Innovative Programs for the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts.
Jean Bruce Scott is co-founder and the Producing Executive Director of Native Voices at the
Autry. She has produced 30 premieres, 21 New Play Festivals, 12 Playwrights Retreats, more
than 200 play readings, and 20 national and international tours. She is co-creator of the Native
Radio Theater Project, a collaboration between Native Voices and Native American Public
Telecommunications, and developed the Alaska Native Playwrights Project. Her illustrious
background includes extensive theatre credits, as well as serving as president of Sine Bahn
Productions, an independent production company noted for developing screenplays, teleplays,
and stage plays. Familiar for numerous lead and recurring acting roles on Days of Our Lives;
Magnum, P.I.; Port Charles; Newhart; Matlock; Airwolf; and St. Elsewhere, she has gueststarred on a multitude of other series and television movies. She is a past member of the L.A.
Board of Directors for AFTRA and served on the SAG Local Hollywood American Indian
Committee, currently Scott is on the Leadership Board of the Theatrical Producer’s League of
Los Angeles, Large Theatres, the National Advisory Board for the Last Frontier Theatre
Conference and is an elected member to the National Theatre Conference, New York.
Native Voices at the Autry is the only Equity theatre company devoted exclusively to
developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American, Alaska Native, and First
Nations playwrights. Founded in 1994 by Producing Artistic Director Randy Reinholz (Choctaw)
and Producing Executive Director Jean Bruce Scott, Native Voices became the resident theatre
company at the Autry in 1999. The company provides a supportive, collaborative setting for
Native theatre artists from across North America. In 2014 the company established the Native
Voices Artists Ensemble to more fully take advantage of the extraordinary talents of its Native
actors, writers, musicians, and directors. The Ensemble is devoted to developing new work in a
collaborative process as well as supporting Native Voices’ ongoing focus on the work of
individual playwrights. Native Voices at the Autry is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, LA
Stage Alliance, and the Dramatists Guild, and is a Constituent Theatre of Theatre
Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre.
Visit TheAutry.org/NativeVoices for more information.
Founded in 1979, Perseverance Theatre has grown to produce a season of classical,
contemporary and new plays, including over 70 world-premiere productions, for audiences in
Juneau and Anchorage, reaching 24,000 attendees annually, employing over 400 artists from
across Alaska, and engaging 200 volunteers. Perseverance Theatre believes theatre going
creates community by fostering empathy, relationships and communication skills, thereby
creating more vital and cohesive communities. Perseverance Theatre’s mission is to create
professional theatre by and for Alaskans. For more information on Perseverance Theatre visit
www.ptalaska.org, or follow Perseverance Theatre on facebook/PerseveranceTheatre.
The Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse is internationally-renowned for creating some of
the most exciting and adventurous work in American theatre, through its new play development
initiatives, its innovative Without Walls series, artist residencies and commissions, including BD
Wong, Daniel Beaty and Kirsten Greenidge. Currently led by Artistic Director Christopher Ashley
and Managing Director Michael S. Rosenberg, the Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory
Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, and reborn in 1983 under the artistic leadership of Des
McAnuff, La Jolla Playhouse has had 25 productions transfer to Broadway, garnering 35 Tony
Awards, among them Jersey Boys, Memphis, The Who’s Tommy, Big River, as well as Billy
Crystal’s 700 Sundays and the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, both fostered as part
of the Playhouse’s Page To Stage Program. Visit LaJollaPlayhouse.org.
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