Arts: See Native American New Play Festival in Oklahoma City

Friday, April 1, 2011  

"When it comes to penning tales that explore his American Indian heritage, Bret Jones is flush with good ideas.

For the second year in a row, the Oklahoma-born and bred playwright will have one of his plays featured as part of Oklahoma City Theatre Company’s Native American New Play Festival. That’s a hot streak, considering this is just the second year for the festival celebrating American Indian playwrights.

“Right now very few theaters are willing to invest time, money and energy into new works, so a staged reading is very economical ... and it’s getting the material out there,” said Jones, who happens to be my cousin.

“In our country right now, multiculturalism is the word that people throw around a lot. And this happens to be one of those cultures that doesn’t really get a tremendous amount of attention or focus and is having still to this day tremendous trouble integrating.”

The festival started last week with the premiere of the winning play from last year’s festival, “Dirty Laundry,” a sandwich generation drama by Oklahoma writer Ranell Collins. The event concludes this weekend with three more performances of “Dirty Laundry,” plus two staged readings of unproduced plays. Admission is free to the staged readings."

Get the Story:
BRANDY McDONNELL BAM: Native American New Play Festival flush with good stories (The Oklahoman 4/1)