The Woman Who Was Captured by Ghosts

Our last Retreat and Festival play is The Woman Who Was Captured by Ghosts by Julie Pearson- Little Thunder which was featured during our 2008 Playwrights Retreat and Festival of New Plays. This story follows a Cheyenne woman as she faces her own mortality on a metaphysical journey to a place where tradition is the best medicine. Aiding Julie along her journey are Jere Hodgin, Julie Jensen, and Waylon Lenk.

Julie Pearson- Little Thunder, Playwright
Julie Pearson-Little Thunder (Creek) was raised in Denver, Colorado in a mixed-blood Creek family and discovered theater for the first time while she was in college. She moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1980 to work with an American Indian Theater Company of Oklahoma (ATICO). After AITCO folded, she co-founded Tulsa Indian Actors’ Workshop which is now known as Thunder Road Theater. Besides working with Thunder Road Theater, she's taught theater at Haskell Indian Nations University and Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She's currently employed by the Oral Histories Department at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

Jere Hodgin, 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 musicals. For 20 years he was the Producing Artistic Director of Mill Mountain Theatre, where he founded the nationally recognized Norfolk Southern New Play Festival. He served as Artistic Director and Coproducer of Highlands Playhouse and has directed at numerous theatres, including Fulton Theatre, Pennsylvania Center Stage, Theatre Artists Studio, Walnut Street Theatre, the Barter Theatre, the Phoenix Theatre, and Wayside Theatre. He has directed new works at the Shenandoah Playwrights Retreat, the Missoula Writers Colony, the Phoenix Theatre's New Works Festival, and Native Voices at the Autry's Playwrights Retreat and Festival of New Plays. He has been a reader and judge for numerous national new play contests and competitions and chaired Native Voices' 2010 National Reading Panel. He recently directed the Native Voices/ Montana Repertory Theatre coproduction of The Frybread Queen in Missoula, Montana. He is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Actors' Equity Association, Theatre Communications Group, and the National Theatre Conference.

Julie Jensen, Dramaturg
Julie Jensen is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Award for New American Plays for White Money, the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work for The Lost Vegas Series, and the LA Weekly Award for Best New Play for Two-Headed. She has received the McKnight National Playwriting Fellowship for Wait!, the TCG/NEA Playwriting Residency for Wait!, a major grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts for Dust Eaters, and the Edgerton Foundation Grant for Billion Dollar Baby. Her work has been produced in London and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as well as in this country in New York and theatres nationwide. She has been commissioned by Mark Taper Forum, ASK Theatre Projects, Kennedy Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Salt Lake Acting Company, Geva Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Penn State University, and Dramatic Publishing. Her work is published by Dramatic Publishing, Dramatists Play Service, and Playscripts, Inc. Her book Playwriting: Brief and Brilliant has just been published by Smith and Kraus. Her play She Was My Brother premiered in Tucson, AZ, at Borderlands Theatre, and was produced last fall by Plan-B Theatre in Salt Lake City. She is currently the Resident Playwright at Salt Lake Acting Company.

Waylon Lenk, Assistant Dramaturg
Waylon Lenk (Karuk) is a dramaturg and performer currently working at SUNY Stony Brook. He holds a B.A. in Theater and German Studies from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He has worked as a dramaturg at Lewis & Clark, Camelot Theater in Talent, Oregon, and at Stony Brook. He has performed in everything from musical theater in Talent to Absurdist theater in Portland to traditional Karuk storytelling in New York and all over California. Notable credits include appearing as an “Emerging Storyteller” for the California Indian Storytelling Association back in 2003; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Prince of Homburg, and The Balcony at Lewis & Clark; Brigadoon and Cabaret at Camelot Theater; and a new storytelling piece Stories of Our People at the Consortia of Administrators for Native American Rehabilitation’s conference in San Diego.

The Woman Who Was Captured by Ghosts will be presented at La Jolla Playhouse on Saturday, June 4 and at the Autry National Center on Saturday, June 18 at 4:00p. For tickets, please click here.

For a full listing of this year's Retreat and Festival participants, please click here and check back next week for some info on our fabulous actors.