Auditions and Reading for a national play “Swift Fox”
AUDITIONS on June 6th, with a public READING on June 20th at the Blak Box
JOSHUA TREE, CA – The time was 1909. Mexico was on the brink of Revolution. Women could not vote. Indians were not citizens. There were no airplanes, few automobiles, even fewer telephones, little electricity, and no television nor radio. “Yellow journalism” in newspapers was rampant, featuring exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, and sensationalism.
On September 25th, an incident occurred here in the Hi-Desert with undisputed results that gained national attention: THREE DEAD AND ONE BADLY WOUNDED. However, there was no way to tell exactly what happened, since there were so many versions of the same story. The “myth” of Willie Boy was born.
In preparation for a play that will run at the Hi-Desert Cultural Center this fall, exactly 100 years to the date of the Willy Boy incident, and in a theatre only a few miles away from where the final gun battle took place, writer and director Ron House will be conducting auditions on June 6th at 11am, for a staged reading of “Swift Fox - The Conflicting Stories of Willie Boy” on June 20th, at 7pm.
“Swift Fox,” the Indian name for Willie Boy, is a cutting-edge, astonishing and profound documentary that gives depth to today's headline and is an artistically and intellectually challenging work. House is a talented and experienced writer and director, producing a movie with such greats as the late Beatle George Harrison and discovering actors Jeff Goldblum and Pierce Brosnan. He retired in Pioneertown with his wife Cecilia 10 years ago, and devotes much of his time to rebuilding and rebranding the Hi-Desert Cultural Center. A New York Drama Desk award-winner, House has also been honored as “best director” by the Desert Theatre League every year since he began to create his art locally in the Hi-Desert.
For “Swift Fox”, House has worked in collaboration directly with the Native American Community and the authors of earlier works, to create what he hopes to be the definitive Willie Boy Story for our area and beyond. House explains, “The Willy Boy incident was turned into an Indian uprising, Custer's Last Stand and a whole host of preposterous wild stories. If anything, it was the final death blow to the Native American culture.”
The play will feature original music by Jarrod Radnich and Craig Knudsen, both recently hired by Disney to create two musical shows for the $15 million renovation of Tomorrowland. The soundtrack will be presented in 7.1 surround-sound, similar to what was experienced in “Another Day In Baghdad” a show produced at the Cultural Center that was heralded as “play of the year,” winning many awards and accolades from the Desert and Inland Empire’s most prominent critics and publications. The new play will also feature artwork by Shirley James.
If you are interested in auditioning at 11am on June 6th for the staged read, call 366-3777 or email info@hidesertculturalcenter.com to set up an appointment. The staged read on June 20th (no memorization required) will be open to the public at 7pm. Sample scripts and monologues used in the audition are available on the website at www.hidesertculturalcenter.com
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