Sunday, February 05, 2006

Stone Heart: Everyone Loves a Journey West

Yadhira De Leon
ydeleon@autrynationalcenter.org
323.667.2000, ext. 327


Native Voices at the Autry Presents:
Stone Heart: Everyone Loves a Journey West
A play by Diane Glancy (Cherokee)

February 17 through March 12, 2006
Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm
Saturday and Sunday Matinees at 2pm
Tuesday and Thursday Student Matinees

Los Angeles (December 14, 2005)— SACAJAWEA: I see horses coming from the sky.
I see them change into canoes and I am rowing.
I see my oars are wings.

I hear the clouds talking.
They talk until they are shouting.
Their voices are hailstones pounding the river.
The water is turbulent and hard to row.
I shake my oars which are wings
but I do not fly.

On the beautiful afternoon of April 7, 1805, the Lewis and Clark expedition depart from Fort Mandan in North Dakota on their journey up the Missouri River in search of the Pacific Ocean. With newborn in tow, the story of a young Shoshoni woman, Sacajawea, is revealed through the highly-visual, profound words of award-winning author and playwright Diane Glancy (Cherokee). York, Clark’s black slave, also has a voice, and together with Sacajawea, shed a new light on the Lewis and Clark’s 1804–1806 Corps of Discovery expedition.

YORK: I have traveled with this expedition as a man unlike others— My grandfathers came on a slave ship across the ocean. I rowed a canoe across a continent.

This full Equity production of Stone Heart: Everyone Loves a Journey West is about betrayal and choice. Based on Glancy’s novel, Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea, it exposes the courage of these two enigmatic individuals who traveled to the sea and back on a perilous journey of the heart.

SACAJAWEA: In the end, my oars were wings. In the end, I am Bird Woman who knew how to fly.

Cast
Sacajawea- Thirza Defoe (Ojibwe, Oneida)
York- Jed Reynolds
Lewis and Clark- Tim Glenn
Director- Randy Reinholz (Choctaw)
Dramaturg- Bryan Davidson
Lighting Director- Craig Wolf
Music Composer/Performer- Patrick Shendo-Mirabal (Jemes, Taos Pueblo)
Biographies and images available upon request.

Stone Heart runs February 17 through March 12, 2006. Fridays & Saturdays: 8 p.m. Saturday & Sunday Matinees: 2 p.m. Tuesday & Wednesday Student Matinees: 10:30 a.m. Tickets: $20 / Members $12. Groups of 10 or more save 20%. Group leaders and schools: please call 323.667.2000, ext. 257. For reservations, call TicketWeb at 866.468.3399 or visit www.ticketweb.com.

Stone Heart: Everyone Loves a Journey West will begin a nationwide tour starting at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City and Washington DC in April 2006.

Panel Discussion for Stone Heart: Everyone Loves a Journey West
Sunday, February 19
2 – 5 pm
Sacajawea’s Voice
A conversation with award-winning author and playwright Diane Glancy (Cherokee) and Virginia Scharff, Professor of History, University of New Mexico, and Women of the West Chair, Autry National Center. In conjunction with Diane Glancy’s play, Stone Heart: Everyone Loves a Journey West, which begins at 2 p.m. Meet the cast and producers at a reception and join the panel immediately following. To RSVP, call 323.667.2000, ext. 354.

About the Playwright
Diane Glancy (Cherokee) is a celebrated author and playwright. Her quest to discover the real story of Sacajawea has turned into a five-year labor of love, visiting the rivers and camps where Sacajawea traversed and slept. Authoring a novel and now a play based on countless hours of research and viewing copies of the original Lewis and Clark journals, her desire to tell the true story of Sacajawea is being fulfilled.

“At the banks of the Missouri River, I found a small stone in the shape of a beaver, and as I held it, the phrase ‘stone heart’ came to me. Here was the permission I sought from the land and the river to write the voices they held. This stone was the token for the book, and it appears on the cover.” Diane Glancy

Glancy is currently on a four-year sabbatical from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she taught Native American Literature and Creative Writing. Glancy’s latest books are Rooms, a collection of new and selected poems; In-between Places, a collection of essays; and The Dance Partner: Stories of the Late-19th-century Ghost Dance. In addition, she has published two books of plays, War Cries and American Gypsy. Glancy is the recipient of the 2005 Envision Fellowship in Playwriting from Bard College and Voice and Vision Theater in New York. She is also the recipient of numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Award and a Minnesota Book Award.

About Native Voices at the Autry
In 2000, the Autry National Center launched Native Voices at the Autry, a theater company devoted to developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American playwrights. This project brings established, mid-career, and/or emerging Native writers to the Autry to workshop material with professional directors, dramaturges, and actors.

Native Voices at the Autry is a Constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theater.

Native Voices at the Autry is an Organizational Member of LA Stage Alliance, Los Angeles's non-profit organization dedicated to building awareness, appreciation and support for the performing arts.


About the Autry National Center
The Autry National Center is composed of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian and the Museum of the American West (formerly the Autry Museum of Western Heritage), and the Institute for the Study of the American West in Los Angeles. For more information about the Autry, visit www.autrynationalcenter.org or call 323.667.2000.


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