Four Women in Red
The Artists

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Laura Annawyn Shamas (Playwright) is a 2023 winner of the Los Angeles New Play Project Award. She was born and raised in Oklahoma, and has lived in various places in the U.S., including Tulsa, Denver, and Los Angeles. Her multicultural background includes Chickasaw, English, French, Irish, Lebanese, and Scottish heritage. She is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation and is married to award-winning writer Jon Klein. There’s more about Laura in a June 2024 article by K.C. Cole in The Chickasaw Times.  Shamas has written over 40 plays, including Circular (published in 2024 by Next Stage Press), Picnic at Hanging Rock (adaptation), Portrait of a Nude, Lady-Like, Chasing Honey, The Other Shakespeare, Talking Leaves (winner, Garrard Best Play Award at Five Civilized Tribes Museum), and Amelia Lives (winner, Fringe First Award at Edinburgh Festival Fringe). Her short play, Seeds, won the Von Marie Atchley Award for Excellence in Playwriting from Native Voices. Her work has been developed by many companies, including Native Earth Performing Arts (Toronto), The Lark and The Public Theater (New York City), Williamstown Theatre Festival and Utah Shakespearean Festival. 2021, Shamas was part of the Indigenous Writers Collaborative at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In 2024, she was part of the ReproEco Theater Project, commissioned by ReproFreedomArts.org; her short new play, Priorities, was performed in New York City in October along with five other new plays about the intersection of reproductive freedom and environmental justice in today’s world (co-produced by ReproFreedomArts and MultiStages). She has worked as a dramaturg for Native Voices at the Autry for their Short Play Festivals (2021-2023) and Festival of New Plays (2024). She’s currently writing a novel.  Shamas graduated from UCLA (B.A. in Theatre), the University of Colorado at Boulder (M.A. in English/Creative Writing), and Pacifica Graduate Institute (M.A. and Ph.D. in Mythological Studies). Shamas received her Ph.D. in 2003. She is on the American Theatre “List of Native Theatres and Theatremakers.”

Jeanette Harrison (Director) directed the world premiere of Diné Nishłį (i am a sacred being) Or, A Boarding School Play by Blossom Johnson, and was associate director for the Broadway premiere of The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse (dir: Rachel Chavkin). With Vickie Ramirez and Ty Defoe, she was awarded a Democracy Cycle Commission from New York City’s Perelman Performing Arts Center. Jeanette spent most of her career in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she co-founded AlterTheater, before moving to Portland in 2023. At AlterTheater, she architected the award-winning AlterLab playwright residency program, shepherding more than 25 new plays to world premieres, and directed the multi-Theatre Bay Area Award-winning production of The Amen Corner. She worked with most Bay Area theaters, including Playwrights Foundation (director, Real Time Remix by Jaisey Bates), Cutting Ball (Marcus Gardley’s …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, BATCC Award, Best Production), Berkeley Rep, Magic Theatre, Aurora Theatre, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Cal Shakes, Golden Thread Productions, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Sonoma County Rep, Sonoma Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theater, Theatre Rhino, among others. Her dramaturgical credits include Sapience by Diana Burbano at ART, where she (briefly) served as artistic director, and Ghosts of Bogotá by Diana Burbano with AlterTheater which premiered in 2020 and is now published by Stage Rights. She is co-director of the Arts Learning Project for Native Youth, a performing arts program designed and taught by Indigenous education experts and Native professional artists. She is the creative director of the Native Theater Project, in residence at Bag&Baggage Productions. She’s taught with Portland State University, Santa Clara University, University of Southern California, Temple University, College of Marin, Dominican University, and Institute of American Indian Arts.

Carolyn M. Dunn (“Lynda”), MFA and PhD, Dunn’s life as a storyteller encompasses both poetry and playwriting with works about family, grief, resilience, and the landscape in all genres and in between. In addition to the award-winning Outfoxing Coyote (That Painted Horse Press, 2002), her books include Through the Eye of the Deer (with Carol Zitzer-Comfort, Aunt Lute Books, 1999), Coyote Speaks (with Ari Berk, HN Abrams, 2008) Echolocation: Poems, Stories and Songs from Indian Country: L.A. (Fezziweg Press, 2013), The Stains of Burden and Dumb Luck (Mongrel Empire Press, 2017), a forthcoming collection of plays, The Frybread Queen, Soledad, and Three Sisters: Three Plays by Carolyn Dunn (edited and with an introduction by Sarah dAngelo, No Passport Press, 2024) and Decentered Playwriting, coedited with Leslie Hunter and Eric Micha Holmes, Routledge, 2023).  Her plays The Frybread Queen, Ghost Dance, and Soledad have been developed and staged at Native Voices at the Autry, and her current works in progress are the pow wow comedy Chasing Tailfeathers, commissioned by Oklahoma Indigenous Theatre Company and Coyote Woman, a TYA play commission for Rising Youth Theatre in Phoenix. Stage acting credits include Desert Stories for Lost Girls, The Bingo Palace, Citizen , Neechie-itas, Sliver of a Full Moon, and the musicals Distant Thunder and Missing Peace. A Louisiana Acadian Creole, Dr. Dunn is  a non-enrolled Freedman tribal descendant of three Oklahoma-based tribes; and is a Tunica/Choctaw-Biloxi and Atakapas-Ishak descendant and community member. Dr. Dunn is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Actor’s Equity. She lives part-time in Los Angeles and part-time in Oklahoma with her family.

Harriette Feliz (“Jo”) is a Chumash Native American and so thrilled to be telling this story with this team! She is a multidisciplinary artist who has a passion for producing, acting and writing her own work. Selected theater credits include For Peace I Rise (National Center for Civil and Human Rights) A Moveable Feast, (Book-It Repertory Theater), The Tempest (Liminal Space Players) and Hamlet (Kinsmen Shakespeare). Film and television credits include Investigation Discovery, Nice Guy, and Sex Ed. In her spare time, Harriette works hard to empower other actors to have agency in their own careers.

Zoey Reyes (“Sadie”) is a multidisciplinary artist (model, actor, dancer) born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. After working on her first play workshop earlier this year, Miss Reyes is delighted to make her debut on the Victory Theatre stage. She recently worked as a co-star in the Netflix feature film RezBall, directed by Sydney Freeland. With a very bright future ahead of her, Zoey is honored and extremely grateful to represent Black and Indigenous women in the theater and TV/film industry.

Jehnean Washington (“Marie”) is descendant from the Yuchi, Seminole and Shoshone nations. A graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, Jehnean has worked professionally for over 30 years as an actress, singer/song writer and musician within the entertainment industry’s venues of film, television, radio, voice overs, concerts, opera and live theater. She wrote the award winning screenplay RAVE and enjoys writing for both stage and screen. Jehnean has worked with Mahenwahdose productions theater company as well as with and acting as assistant artistic and musical director for the legendary American Indian Theater Company. She is an ensemble member of Native Voices at the Autry, and is a recognized storyteller with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. She is a member of SAGAFTRA. Her original musical arrangement can be heard on the Grammy-nominated album ‘Song of America.’ and she is a featured singer on the NAMMY award-winning album SIIB. In her musical career, she has shared the stage with music greats and rock legends Bobby Kimball (lead singer of Toto), Teddy Andreadis (Carol King & The Box Masters with Billy Bob Thornton), Butch Taylor (Dave Mathews Band), Pura Fe, Ulali, Indigo Girls, Keith Secola, Barbara McAlister, Van Anh Vo, Du Yun, Raven Chacon, and many others. Jehnean sings opera with the world famous Los Angeles-based opera company The Industry.