Yiikes and yikes again!

Just realized this blog hasn't been updated since January 2010! I think I'm back. Either way, I am here...still.

Fun announcements: My play The Frybread Queen will see two productions this year- woo hoo!! Both are Native Voices at the Autry co-productions. The first will be at Montana Repertory Theatre September 17-26, directed by Jere Hodgin, and produced by Jean Bruce Scott and Randy Reinholz, with dramaturgy by Robert Caisley. This is indeed exciting news and I am thrilled with the prospects of it all.

The Frybread Queen is the story of four women who come together to bury a beloved family member: father, husband, son, and lover. Each woman has a secret to guard and in their grief secrets are exposed that threatens to rip apart the fabric of the family. The play was first workshopped in 2007 with Native Voices at the Autry and then enjoyed two staged readings, both at the Autry's First Look series (2008), directed by the awesome Jennifer Bobiwash (Ojibwe) and the Festival of New Plays (2009), directed by the New Theater's Scott Horstein, at the La Jolla Playhouse and at the Autry's Wells Fargo Theater. Both readings featured the wonderfully talented actresses and Native voices vets Arigon Starr (Kickapoo/Creek) as Annalee, LaVonne Rae Andrews (Tlingit) as Jessie, Kateri Walker (Saginaw Chippewa) as Carlisle, and Rayanna Zaragoza (Pima) as Lily.

Jere is working on casting for the Montana Rep production, and hopefully there will more more Frybread news shortly.

I had the honor of appearing in a staged reading Jack Dalton (Yupik) and Allison Warden's (Inupiat) Time Immemorial at the La Jolla Playhouse on June 6th. Time Immemorial is a gorgeous piece that explores the Inupiat creation myths involving Eagle and Raven. Jack is a world reknowned artist, dancer and storyteller and Allison is an incredible performance artist who is currently developing a one-woman show called Ode to a Polar Bear. Jack and Allison play all the characters in Time Immemorial and Native Voices at the Autry worked with them last winter with the Alaska Native Playwrights Project. I got to read with my good friend Kalani Queypo (Native Hawaiian, Blackfeet), with whom I've worked on many different projects in the past, but this is the first time we acted together, and we had a blast. Kalani is a stage and screen vet who last year wowed the festival circuit with his short film Ancestor Eyes, which he wrote, directed and produced. We will be reading Time Immemorial at the Wells Fargo Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, June 27th, and I encourage as many people as possible to come out and see it, as well as readings of Marie Clements' (Metis) Tombs of the Vanishing Indian on Saturday, June 26th, and Dawn Jamieson's (Cayuga) On The Mangled Beam, following Time Immemorial at 4:00 pm.

So, I will be spending the summer finishing my manuscript on Native women in performance, two novels, Bloodletter, the second of my genre-bending sci-fi/spec-fic set in Los Angeles in 2083; and Deer Woman, the first of my new young adult series also taking place in Los Angeles, but during contemporary times. Oh, and finishing the poetry manuscript tentatively titled The Stains of Burden and Dumb Luck. I also have a couple new plays percolating in the back of my brain and am looking forward to working on those as well.

Ok, I think I'm caught up now, and will try and blog more often.