Spotlight on TIME IMMEMORIAL

Written by Jack Dalton (Yup'ik Inuit) and Allison Warden (Iñupiaq Eskimo)

Directed by Jere Hodgin

Dramaturgy by Robert Caisley

@ La Jolla Playhouse on Sunday, June 6 from 1p - 3p

@ Autry National Center on Sunday, June 27 from 1p - 3p

Long, long ago, there was the light. And then there were Tulu and Miti. And then… history happened. A clever retelling of how the world was made. Staged reading. 

About the playwrights

Jack Dalton (Yup'ik Inuit) has grown up an ambassador between two worlds -  his Yup'ik Inuit and European heritages. A professional storyteller, actor, writer, and teacher, he received the first Expressive Arts Grant from the National Museum of the American Indian. He has created and produced five theatrical works of storytelling; written a book; co-wrote and starred in the play Raven’s Radio Hour; performed internationally in France, Denmark, and Australia; headlined the Scottish International Storytelling Festival; and has received grants to co-write and star in two plays, Time Immemorial and Cauyaqa Nauwa: Where Is My Drum? He is currently, writing his fourth play, Assimilation.

Allison Warden (Iñupiaq Eskimo) is a Performance Artist, who most recently developed a performance art piece in the show “virtual subsistence,” which she helped co-curate at the MTS Gallery in Anchorage. Her performance art piece "Wait, Let Me Finish Putting On My Armor" was also at MTS Gallery. As a playwright, she co-wrote and co-starred in Time Immemorial with Jack Dalton in the spring of 2009. She also is a rapper, under the name of AKU-MATU and is about to release an album, using her own beats that she creates, sampling her traditional music and sounds. Her one-woman show Ode to the Polar Bear, which explores climate change and the fate of Alaska's polar bear,  has been touring for the past two years.

About the Director

Jere Hodgin has produced over 200 productions, many of which were new and premiere works, and his directing career includes more than 175 plays, operas, and musical. For 20 years he was the Producing Artistic Director of Mill Mountain Theatre; he served as Artistic Director and Co-Producer of Highlands Playhouse in NC and has directed at numerous theatres including Walnut Street Theatre, The Barter Theatre, The Phoenix Theatre, and Wayside Theatre. He's served as a NEA site visitor and has been a member of the NEA Creativity Panels multiple years. He's a past president of the Southeastern Theatre Conference where he also chaired the Playwriting Committee. He is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Actor’s Equity Association, Theatre Communications Group, and The National Theatre Conference.

About the Dramaturg

Robert Caisley is Associate Professor of Theatre & Film, and Head of the Dramatic Writing Program at the University of Idaho. He served as Idaho Repertory Theatre’s Artistic Director from 2001- 2004. His play The Lake received its Equity World Premiere at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre and was subsequently produced at the Mill Mountain Theatre and at New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida. Other plays include: Kissing, The 22-Day Adagio, Good Clean Fun, and Front. His numerous short plays include Western Mentality, The Apology, and Santa Fe, which was a finalist for the 2004 Heideman Award from Actor’s Theatre of Louisville and originally produced by Stageworks/Hudson as part of the 2005 Play By Play Festival, Hudson, NY. His new play Push was commissioned by Penn State School of Theatre.

Playing Miti

Carolyn Dunn (Muskogee Creek, Seminole, Cherokee) is a poet, playwright and scholar whose poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her poetry has been collected in Outfoxing Coyote and the forthcoming Echolocation; she is the editor of two anthologies: Hohzo — Walking in Beauty (with Paula Gunn Allen) and Through the Eye of the Deer (with Carol Comfort); and she is the author of a children's book, Coyote Speaks (with Ari Berk). She is the founding director of the American Indian Theatre Collective and her play Ghost Dance is currently in development with the Los Angeles Theatre Project. She is also a songwriter and member of the all–women Native drum group The Mankillers.

Playing Tulu

Kalani Queypo (Blackfeet/ Hawaiian) is a proud collaborator with Native Voices at the Autry where he serves on the Advisory Council. He's been seen in the Oscar-nominated film, The New World, and the Emmy Award-winning Into the West. He received the Directorial Discovery Award at the prestigious Rhode Island International Film Festival for a short film he wrote and directed, Ancestor Eyes. Other awards from the film festival circuit include Best Short Film, Best Music Score, Audience Choice, and an Aloha Accolade Award. He works closely with the Young Native Voices: Theater Education Project and is currently producing a feature length film, Our Voices, Our Stories, which will explore the impact of this writing program on Native youth in the urban LA community.

This team will be joined by Ally Zonsius who will serve as the show's stage manager. More info on Ally to come soon!