Jean Bruce Scott

Native Voices at the Autry

September 1993 - Present

In 1993, Randy Reinholz and I co-founded Native Voices to provide the opportunity and arena for Native American playwrights to develop and produce works for the stage. Today, Native Voices offers an annual playwright’s retreat, public readings, workshops, youth education projects, and reservation outreach. We produce radio plays, and professional Equity productions of Native American plays.

In 1999, we found our artistic home at the Autry National Center where we produced "Urban Tattoo" by Marie Clements in conjunction with the Autry's exhibit Powerful Images: Portrayals of Native America. Due to the play's success, the Autry invited us to create a three-year theater initiative that developed into Native Voices at the Autry - a professional Equity theater company that is now a Constituent Theater of Theater Communications Group (TCG); a member theater of LA Stage Alliance and The Dramatists Guild; and a participating theater in the Capacity Building Program for Culturally Specific Performing Arts Institutions at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Our critically acclaimed productions have toured nationally and internationally. Scripts developed by Native Voices have gone on to workshops and productions at The Mark Taper Forum, the Minneapolis Playwright’s Center, Native Earth Performing Arts, New York Theatre Workshop, Trinity Rep., the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, The Gilcrease Museum, Centre Stage of Pennsylvania, The Kennedy Center, and The Public Theatre.

Native Voices at the Autry is committed to developing, producing, and touring exceptional new work by Native Americans and to raising the visibility of Native theatre artists nationally and internationally.