Native Voices Staff
Producing Artistic Director: Randy Reinholz (Choctaw)
Producing Executive Director: Jean Bruce Scott
Managing Director: David Burton
Literary Manager: Carlenne Lacosta
Senior Manager: Rich Deely
Literary Assistant: Pamela Sevilla
Producing Executive Director: Jean Bruce Scott
Managing Director: David Burton
Literary Manager: Carlenne Lacosta
Senior Manager: Rich Deely
Literary Assistant: Pamela Sevilla
Playwright
Terry Gomez (Comanche) is a published and produced playwright, writer, director, actor, educator, and painter. Her play Inter-Tribal has been produced at The Public Theater, New York City. Other produced work includes: Tobacco Leaves, Numunu Waiipunu: The Comanche Women, Antigone, A Day at the Nighthawk, Rain Dance, Melanin, Acedia, Reunion, and The Woman with a Mustache. She has been a director for the Two Worlds Native Theater Festival and the Cool Side of Hell Theater Troupe, Institute of American Indian Arts. She is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Native Theater Festival at The Public Theater. Carbon Black was featured at Native Voices at the Autry's 2009 Playwrights Retreat and Festival of New Plays and received a reading at La Jolla Playhouse.
Director
Randy Reinholz (Choctaw) is co-creator of Native Voices at the Autry and has directed plays across the US and Canada including The Rez Sisters, The Waiting Room, Hedda Gabler, The Cherry Orchard, Proof, Speed the Plow, The Glass Menagerie, Desire Under The Elms, and numerous productions of Shakespeare plays. For Native Voices at the Autry, he's directed and produced Urban Tattoo and Equity productions of Jump Kiss, Stone Heart, The Red Road, The Buz'Gem Blues, The Berlin Blues, Please Do Not Touch the Indians and Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light; and executive produced Kino & Teresa, SUPER INDIAN, Teaching Disco Square Dancing to Our Elders, and Salvage. He is co-founder and producer for Native Radio Theater a collaboration between Native Voices and Native American Public Telecommunications. He received a BA from William Jewell College and an MFA from Cornell University. In March 2009 he received the Citation of Achievement from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. The citation honors alumni who have achieved distinction in their chosen spheres of endeavor and is the highest honor bestowed upon William Jewell College alumni. He is on the Advisory Committee for the Native Theater Festival at The Public Theatre and a member of The National Theatre Conference. He is a tenured professor at San Diego State University in the Department of Theater and on faculty for American Indian Studies. In 2007, after ten years as the Head of Acting, he was named the Director of the School of Theatre, Television, and Film at San Diego State University.
Dramaturg
Douglas Langworthy is currently the Literary Manager and Dramaturg at the Denver Center Theatre Company. Prior to Denver, he served as Dramaturg and Director of Play Development at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ for two years and Director of Literary Development and Dramaturgy at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) for seven. While at OSF he developed a new adaptation of Dumas’ The Three Musketeers with Linda Alper and Penny Metropulos and a new translation of Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechuan, both for the 1999 season. In 2007 he collaborated with Penny Metropulos and Linda Alper to write the lyrics and book for the new musical Tracy’s Tiger, based on the novella by William Saroyan, with music by Sterling Tinsley. He has translated 15 plays from the German, which include Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind and The Prince of Homburg, Penthesilea, and Amphitryon. His translation of Goethe’s Faust was produced in New York City by Target Margin Theatre.
Scenic Designer
Susan Baker Scharpf is a freelance set designer and the full-time Charge Scenic Artist/ Propsmaster at San Diego State University. She graduated with a BA in Drama from Texas Woman's University and an MFA in Scenic Design from SDSU. She owns her own business, designing and painting scenery and murals both privately and commercially. Her set designs include Native Voices at the Autry's Teaching Disco Square Dancing to Our Elders, Stone Heart, The Berlin Blues, Salvage, and Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; La Pastorela; The Tempest; Arcadia; and A Bright Room Called Day.
Lighting Designer
R. Craig Wolf is a professional lighting designer and educator. Credits include productions for San Diego's Old Globe Theatre, Dance Theatre Workshop in New York, Virginia Shakespeare and the Richmond Ballet Company, Theatre Artaud in San Francisco, and the Japan America Center and Odyssey Theatre Ensemble of Los Angeles. He is senior author of the lighting and sound sections of Scene Design and Stage Lighting, now in its ninth edition and is a member of the Board of Directors of USITT, the national association of stage designers and technicians. He became a lighting associate member of the United Scenic Artists Design Union in 1977. He has taught at the Universities of Michigan and Virginia and is currently Professor of Design and head of the design program at San Diego State University.
Costume and Props Designer
Christina Wright has designed costumes for the past twenty-odd years and her award winning work has included costumes for Robert Wilson and Philip Glass' opera Monsters of Grace; Bill Viola's Quintet of the Astonished and Memoria; Godspell at the Knightsbridge Theatre; and The Open Fist Theatre company's productions of James Joyce's The Dead, The King Stag, Fernando, and the critically acclaimed The Devil With Boobs. Other favorite work includes David Schweizer's Transformations, the Tiffany Theatre's production of The Mystery of Irma Vep, and Jodi Long's Surfing DNA. Clients include BRC Imagination Arts, Artistry Entertainment, The J. Paul Getty museum, and Paramount's Magic of the Movies. For the past nine years she has loved designing and creating costumes and props for Native Voices at the Autry.
Sound Designer
Janna Lopez Raven (Taos Pueblo, Yaqui) received her theater degree with a specialization in Sound Design from the University of Victoria, British Columbia. She has sound designed for Native Voices at the Autry’s productions of Kino & Teresa, The Red Road, The Berlin Blues, and Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light; was the SFX Recorder for SUPER INDIAN; and the reading SFX recorder and sound effects artist for The Further Adventures of Super Indian. She also sound assisted and programmed the SFX computer for Michel Tyabji for Salvage. This past year, she sound mixed for Jaxxtheatrics' children's program for Willy Wonka, Jr (7 wireless mics) and sound mixed Jaxxtheatrics (15 wireless mics) for the West Coast musical premier The Life at the Stella Adler Theatre. She is also the Sound Designer for Embodi and Obnoxious; the Sound Stylist for the Antaeus Theatre Company in 2006; and was a Native Radio Theater National Audio Theater Festival Participant in 2006.
Production Stage Manager
Dale Alan Cooke's credits include: Native Voices at the Autry's Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light, Salvage, The Berlin Blues (including a tour to NYC and Washington DC), and Teaching Disco Square Dancing to Our Elders; Theatre West's A Very Brady Musical directed by Lloyd Schwartz and Nunsense directed by Dan Goggin; three productions for Ray Bradbury’s Pandemonium Theatre Company; and five Storybook Theatre children’s shows. Other theaters as stage manager include: A Noise Within; Alex Theater; Avalon in Hollywood; Barnsdall Gallery Theatre; Carpenter Center in Richmond, Virginia; Colony Theatre; Falcon Theatre Burbank; Hudson Mainstage Theatre; and International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. AEA
Technical Director
Jeremy Lazzara is currently the Shop Foreman at San Diego State University. Most recently, he's worked at South Coast Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse, and with Disney Entertainment Productions. For Native Voices at the Autry, he has worked on Salvage and Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light.
Assistant Director (San Diego) and Website Manager
Pamela Sevilla graduated from San Diego State University in the Spring of 2008 with a BA in Theatre Arts (Performance) and has continued at SDSU as an MA candidate in Theatre Arts. Performance credits include: Desire Under the Elms (Abbie Putnam), Songs for a New World, The Jungle Book (Mother Wolf), The Grapes of Wrath (Ensemble), In the Beginning (Ensemble), and Lord Derby's Giant Eland (Elizabeth, Random Access). Previous projects: Bunbury: A Serious Play for Trivial People (Director, Skull and Dagger), Kiss of the Spider Woman (Director, SDSU Juries) and The Glass Menagerie (Assistant Director). She has also participated in Native Voices Playwrights Retreat and Festival of New Plays (2008, 2009).
Assistant Director (Los Angeles)
Jennifer Bobiwash (Ojibway) Coming from a small town that few have heard of, acting opportunities were few and far between. Her career started at a young age, as the star of her own variety hour that played daily from her front yard where she regaled the audience with cover songs and interviewed local guests. She has worked in film, television, and theatre and is currently helping with the production of two webseries, as well as writing and starring in another. Her one person show There is No I in Indian will be premiering in early 2010. www.jennercide.com. Represented by Redrock Entertainment Development. SAG
Master Electrician
Ashley Johnstone has just completed her MFA in Lighting Design from San Diego State University. Recently she has designed Good Person of Szechwan (SDSU), Love Song (Cygnet Theatre, San Diego), and Desire Under the Elms (SDSU). She has previously worked with Native Voices as Assistant Lighting Designer to Craig Wolf on and Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light and Berlin Blues.
Assistant Lighting Designer
Michelle Caron is in her final year as an MFA candidate in Lighting Design at San Diego State University. Her academic designs include Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, A Class Act and Die Fledermaus. Active in the local dance community, she recently co-designed Surface Tension, presented by the John Malashock Dance Company at the Lyceum Theatre, and An Incidental Fear of Numbers, choreographed by Leslie Seiters at the Sushi Performing Arts Center. She is also the resident designer for SDSU's dance department and is the recipient of the Cygnet Theatre Fellowship in Lighting Design.
Production Assistant
Courtney Elkin Mohler (Santa Barbara Chumash) has been busy balancing theory and practice, as they say. She holds a Ph.D. in Critical Studies in Theater from UCLA where she was awarded the 2006-2007 Institute for American Cultures Pre-doctoral Fellowship in American Indian Studies. She currently teaches courses in Theatre, Cultural Studies, and Chicano and Native American Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills and consults for UCLA's ArtsBridge Scholars Program. Due to her lifelong obsession for theater, she also acts, directs and dramaturgs professionally; she sleeps very little.
