Join us at the Balch Arena Theatre at Tufts University on Saturday, March 30 at 2pm for a workshop reading of Haunted, a new play by C1 PlayLab Circuit Flux Lab writer Tara Moses. A satirical horror story with ghosts, divination, and 2000s pop music, Haunted serves as a vehicle for a larger conversation on the Land Back movement and invites theaters and audience members to engage with their relationship (or lack thereof) to local Indigenous communities.
This workshop reading will be directed by Siobhan Brown, with dramaturgy by Quita Sullivan, and is produced in collaboration with Tufts University
>> About the Artists
Tara Moses (she/her) — Playwright
Tara Moses is a citizen of Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Mvskoke, director, award-winning playwright, Producing Artistic Director of telatúlsa, co-Artistic Director of Red Eagle Soaring, and co-Founder of Groundwater Arts. Most recently, her work as a director has been seen with American Indian Community House (New York, NY); Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.); Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (New Haven, CT); Safe Harbors Indigenous Collective (New York, NY); telatúlsa (Tulsa, OK); Oklahoma Indigenous Theatre Company (Edmond, OK); Serenbe Playhouse (Chattahoochee Hills, GA); and Amerinda (New York, NY). She is a Participant in New York Stage and Film’s inaugural NYSAF NEXUS project (2021); a Cultural Capital Fellow with First Peoples Fund (2020); fellow with the Intercultural Leadership Institute (18/19); member of DirectorsLabChicago (2018); member of the Directors Lab at Lincoln Center (2017); recipient of the Thomas C. Fichandler Award (2016); alum of the Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship (2015-2017); associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society; and Dramatists Guild member. She holds a BA in Theatre from the University of Tulsa, and is an MFA Directing Candidate at Brown University/Trinity Rep. She is currently based on the Muscogee Creek Reservation.
Siobhan Brown (she/her) — Director
Siobhan Juanita Brown (Keesuty8ee Elm) is from Roxbury, MA and is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. She lives on her ancestral homelands on the southern coast of Cape Cod. She holds a BFA degree in Performing Arts and African American studies from Emerson College and is a graduate of the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. Performance credits include Suzan-Lori Parks’ The America Play at A.R.T., The Emancipation of Valet de Chambre at Cleveland Play House, Studs Terkel’s American Dreams: Lost and Found with the Acting Company, Medea and Antony and Cleopatra for Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of A Negro with Brandeis Theatre Company and several seasons with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. She has worked extensively in arts education as the former Associate Director of Education at Citi Performing Arts Center and Director of School & Teacher Programs at Actors’ Shakespeare Project, as well as teaching for the Strand Theatre, CSC, and the Acting Company. As a playwright Siobhan wrote A Piece of Silver based on recorded conversations with her maternal and paternal grandmothers who are Mashpee Wampanoag and African American, respectively.
She has worked with the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project as a student of the language since 2005. From 2013 to 2021 Siobhan was a language apprentice and member of the founding teaching team of Weetumuw Katnuhtôhtâkamuq, the first Wôpanâak language and culture immersion school providing academic and Indigenous education using a Montessori pedagogy for decolonization and language reclamation. She is Montessori certified for ages 3 – 6.
Siobhan has been a board member for the Montessori for Social Justice and the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival for Region 1.
In 2023, Siobhan served on the creative team to help develop and direct We Are The Land. This play, written by the all Wampanoag cast and community, made its debut in Plymouth, England in the spring of 2023. Originally intended to be a part of the Plymouth 400 commemoration, We Are The Land depicts moments in history that inform Wampanoag lives today. After a sold out run at the Arts Emerson Majestic Theatre in Boston in the fall, this play hopes to return to stages very soon to help raise awareness to the Indigenous presence in the northeast.
Quita Sullivan (nákum/they/she) — Dramaturg
Quita Sullivan (Montaukett/Shinnecock) (Kee-tah Suh-lih-ven) is Senior Program Director for Theater where nákum directs the National Theater Project. They hold Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Theatre from Knox College and SUNY Stony Brook, respectively, as well as a Juris Doctorate from Wayne State University Law School. Before law school, nákum worked as a Stage Manager at ETA in Chicago and was the first stage manager for ETA’s production of Checkmates by Ron Milner, directed by Woodie King, Jr. They later worked at Great Lakes Performing Artist Associates, a not-for-profit artist management office, creating contracts and managing booking and performing fees for musicians in the Great Lakes area. After law school, they practiced Environmental Justice law for 10 years in Detroit and Boston. Quita is a Senior Fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program, and a 2016 alum of the artEquity Facilitator Training. They are also a former Associated Grant Makers Diversity Fellow, the mission of which was to identify, recruit and cultivate emerging practitioners of color who represent the next generation of philanthropic leaders and offer them training, support and strong community.Quita is chair of the Grantmakers in the Arts Board of Directors Audit Committee and a member of the Trustee Committee, a Steering Committee member of Western Arts Alliance’s Advancing Indigenous Performance program, and a frequent speaker on supporting Indigenous Artists and Racial Equity. Nákum continues to work to support equity at all levels of theater and grant making. Prior to joining NEFA as a staff member, Quita was an Advisor for NEFA’s Native Arts Program. Outside of work, they continue to develop their own artistic talents as a beadwork artist. Nákum is part of a group of community language researchers working to restore Long Island Algonquin to spoken language status, as well as a learner of their language. Quita has achieved the rank of Shodan (first degree) in Ueichi Ryu karate.