Spotlighting our Actors for BIRD HOUSE and THE WOMAN WHO WAS CAPTURED BY GHOSTS

The Bird House
By Diane Glancy
 
Randy Reinholz (Choctaw) is the Producing Artistic Director and Co- creator of Native Voices at the Autry as well as the Director of the School of Theatre, Television, and Film at San Diego State University. He has directed over fifty plays in the US, Australia, Mexico and Canada. As an actor, his theater credits include roles at Pennsylvania Centre Stage, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Heartland Theatre Company, The Hanger Theatre in New York, and numerous roles at The Old Globe Theatre. He was a series regular on Days of Our Lives, and had roles on Pensacola, China Beach, and Tour of Duty, and the sci-fi film Dead Space.
 
Ellen Dostal is thrilled to be part of Diane Glancy’s new play The Bird House. For Native Voices, she has appeared in productions of Jump Kiss (also by Diane), Serra Springs, and The Berlin Blues, which toured NY and Washington D.C., plus a number of developmental workshop readings. Other L.A. credits include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Interact Theatre Co.), City of Angels (NoHo Arts Center) and Eastern Standard (Coast Playhouse). Regional/ Tours: The Big Deal (Theatre Museum, London in collaboration with Mercury Musicals), Sour Grapes (Copake Theatre, NY), Seesaw, Private Lives, Night Watch, Midsummer Night’s Dream. As a founding member of the Academy Repertory Company she has workshopped and performed roles in many new musicals like Bonnie & Clyde, At Home in Mitford, Idaho the Musical, and The Water, all part of ANMT’s reading series at The Colony Theatre. AEA/SAG/AFTRA.
 
Carla- Rae (Seneca, Mohawk) has done some form of acting for many years, though only during the past six years has she has focused entirely on her acting career. Her most recent theatre work has been in staged readings of Tombs of the Vanishing Indian by Marie Clements and The Bird House by Diane Glancy at Native Voices at the Autry. She also has had the privilege of working with the NYC off-B’way theatre group the Liguorian Players, founded and directed by Lenny Delgado. She played Angustias in The House of Bernarda Alba by Frederico Garcia Lorca and Hannah in Edith Stein by Arthur Giron. Her indie film feature role of Rebecca Stonefeather in the award-winning film Imprint won her a Best Supporting Actress Award from the American Indian Film Institute. Her most recent TV episodic guest star roles are in the ABC network series Scoundrels with Virginia Madsen and David James Elliot, PBS’s docudrama We Shall Remain: Trail of Tears, HBO’s Taking Chance, and the FOX series pilot of New Amsterdam, directed by Lasse Halstrom. More recently she and her husband have been creating web videos of her storytelling and children's story reading, with another web series soon coming, of her Quiet Time Words by Carla-Rae, a compilation of daily devotional words of encouragement. Originally from upstate New York, she now resides in L.A.

The Woman Who Was Captured by Ghosts
By Julie Pearson- Little Thunder
 
Kimberly Norris Guerrero (Colville, Salish-Kootenai, Cherokee) is a native Oklahoman and graduate of UCLA who has appeared on stage in Steel Magnolias (Circle Players/Nashville), Canticle of the Plains (Tapestry/Wichita), and in August: Osage County which she performed in Chicago, on Broadway, at the National Theatre in London, the Sydney Theatre Company in Australia and The Old Globe in San Diego. She recently joined Native Voices in the World Premiere of The Frybread Queen at the Autry in Los Angeles. Her film/TV credits include Grey’s Anatomy, Taking Chances, The Sopranos, Naturally Native, Hidalgo, and Seinfeld to name a few. In addition, she works with youth in tribal communities across North America utilizing creative expression as a tool to promote personal and community development.
 
Mary Mora Cordova (P'urhepecha, Yaqui, Luiseno) is a cancer survivor who has enjoyed performing in Native Voices' productions of Buz'Gem Blues and Teaching Disco Dancing To Our Elders; staged readings of Kino and Teresa; and various metaphoric characters for their Young Native Playwrights project. She has also performed leads in original works on stage such as  Katsina, based on the autobiography Sunchief (Herberger Theatre, AZ); St. Augustine's Confessions (PerrisChief Theatre); End Town (Hollywood Moguls Theatre). She played the matriarchal Senora Morena and years earlier played the flirtatious Margarita in California's Official State Outdoor play Ramona (Hemet, CA). Her favorite TV credits include recurring roles on Unsolved Mysteries. Her recent film credit is with writer/ director/ actor Charles S. Dutton in The Obama Effect. She would like to thank her husband Art, family, and her Autry friends for their continued support. Blessings!
 
Carla Nell (Chickasaw) has over 16 years experience acting and directing in the San Diego theatre community and is the artistic director of InnerMission Productions. She is an SDSU graduate with a BA in Theatre Arts. While at SDSU she was featured in the KPBS special documentary: Trial by Fire, The Making of a Theatre Professional. She is also a member of the Pasadena Playhouse Directors Lab West.
 
Michael Drummond is honored to return to Native Voices, where he was last seen as Carbon in Carbon Black. Other favorite roles include Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Old Globe Theatre), Young Macduff in Macbeth (Old Globe Theatre), Randolph in Bye Bye Birdie (Welk Resort Theatre), and Orson in An American Christmas over the past six holiday seasons (Lambs Players Theatre). Television credits include Victorious, iCarly, America's Most Wanted, Everybody Hates Chris, Veronica Mars, and several commercials. In addition to acting, he enjoys photography, surfing, and scuba diving. 

Patrick J. Duffy is a performer, sound designer, and as an avid life learner - he is very excited for his first experience with Native Voices. Performance credits include Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Ion Theatre), Smoke on the Mountain, Joyful Noise, Fantasticks, Angel's Arms, Voysey Inheritance, An Ideal Husband, Rehearsal for Murder, Cold Comfort Farm, and South Pacific (Lamb's Players Theatre); Good Doctor, West Side Story (Moonlight/Avo), West Side Story (Limon Carr Prod.), Can Can, Guys & Dolls, West Side Story (Welk Resort Theatre); Scarlet Pimpernel, Good News (Starlight Theatre); Death and the Maiden (Stone Soup Theatre).  Sound Design credits include Smoke on the Mountain, Pump Boys and Dinettes, Godspell, Fantasticks, Boomers, Light in the Piazza, Secret Garden, American Rhythm (Lamb's Players Theatre). "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
 
Huma Ahmed-Ghosh is a professor in the Department of Women's Studies at San Diego State University. She is also on the Advisory Committees of the Asian-Pacific Studies Program, Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies, and the International Security and Conflict Resolution Program. She has done extensive research in Afghanistan having visited the country six times since 2003. Her research in Afghanistan focuses on how Afghan women-run NGOs strategize women's rights within an Islamic state. She has published on immigrant Muslim women to the USA, women in Afghanistan, gender and Islam in Asia, Islamic and secular feminisms in the Middle East, and on issues of ageing and widowhood in India. She has also conducted Study Abroad Programs for SDSU students to India, China and Turkey. Some of the courses she teaches are on feminist theory, women in cross-cultural perspective, gender and Islam, and gender, war and peace.
 
Javier Guerrero is a native San Diegan who has been performing professionally since 1998. He studied acting under Randy Reinholz at San Diego State University for two years and then under Jim Wise for one year at Penn State Graduate School of Acting. He has worked for many professional theatre companies in San Diego and Los Angeles including Playwrights Project and Native Voices. He appears in many industrial videos, web ads, and commercials as well as the bad guy in a re-enactment on America's Most Wanted. He also performed the lead in the Station Master which debuted at Cygnet Theatre in Old Town San Diego. Represented by the Shamon Freitas Agency in San Diego.
 
The Playwrights Retreat kicks off in San Diego this Saturday, May 28 with the Festival of New Plays beginning next Thursday, June 2 at La Jolla Playhouse. For more information about our events or to purchase your tickets now, please visit our website.