Haunted by Tara Moses

The Autry Museum and Greenway Arts Alliance present the Native Voices National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere of

HAUNTED

 by

Tara Moses (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma)

Ash and Aaron have been dead for twenty years, and the Indigenous siblings pass their time dancing to Britney Spears, haunting the families that try to move into their house, and wondering if they’ll ever be free from the shackles of racist stereotypes. As the cycle begins once more, the siblings ask: Will their souls ever make it to the Spirit World? A satirical ghost story with the coolest Y2K hits, Tara Moses’ Haunted forces us to confront the very land we walk on and our relationship (or lack thereof) with Indigenous communities today.

For the past thirty years, Native Voices has remained the sole Actors’ Equity theatre in the country committed to developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American, First Nations, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian playwrights. Devoted to training Indigenous artists and championing their work nationally through production and professional development opportunities, Native Voices provides a supportive setting for new play development. When founders Randy Reinholz (Choctaw) and Jean Bruce Scott entrusted their legacy to DeLanna Studi (Cherokee) and Elisa Blandford in 2020, the company’s goals remained the same: to foster greater understanding and respect for all and to showcase artistic voices that might otherwise not be heard. Native Voices remains steadfast in its mission of developing Native playwrights and theatre artists, telling Native stories by and about Native people, and providing the public access to these plays and playwrights, but now with the hope of Indigenizing theatre, both for artists and audiences, and to create pathways of learning for the next generations of storytellers and audience members.

National New Play Network is an alliance of professional theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays. NNPN envisions a robust, equitable, and inclusive new play ecology that reflects a broad range of aesthetics, and strives to pioneer, implement, and disseminate ideas and programs that revolutionize the way theaters and audiences encounter new work.

Since its founding in 1998, National New Play Network has grown into a vital force for new work in the American theater, serving over 110+ Member Theaters as well as artists and audiences around the world.

NNPN’s National Showcase of New Plays, initially presented in 2002, was the Network’s first program aimed at creating a new play pipeline that spanned the US. In 2004, NNPN launched the pilot of what has become its paradigm-shifting Rolling World Premiere program. As NNPN’s membership, funding, and programmatic offerings have grown, emergent innovations include season-long Residencies within Member Theaters for rising administrative leaders, a dedicated fund for theater-makers working to develop new plays across institutions, and more. The New Play Exchange®, launched in 2015, is the world’s largest online library of scripts by living writers, and features unprecedented opportunities for direct connection among playwrights, readers, and producers.

NNPN’s current Strategic Plan centers its commitment to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. The Network’s dedication to new plays remains the center of its work, but the future NNPN envisions is one that is robust, inclusive, and equitable for all theater-makers and audience members.

nnpn.org | newplayexchange.org

The Museum of the American West is a museum dedicated to exploring and sharing the stories, experiences, and perceptions of the diverse peoples of the American West, connecting the past to the present to inspire our shared future. The museum presents a wide range of exhibitions and public programs—including lectures, film, theatre, festivals, family events, and music—in addition to scholarship, research, and educational outreach. The Autry’s holdings comprise of more than 600,000 artworks and cultural objects, including one of the largest and most significant collections of Native American materials in the United States. For more information, please visit TheAutry.org.

Haunted is produced at Native Voices as part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. Other Partner Theaters are Cleveland Public Theatre (Cleveland, OH) and Company One Theatre (Boston, MA). For more information, please visit nnpn.org