5712. That's the number of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls.
In Four Women In Red, four Native American women of different generations search for those who have disappeared. Overcoming tragedy, loss, lack of support, and heartbreak, they band together to search above and beyond to bring their loved ones home. What would you do to find a loved one? Is it better to have hope? Or to have closure?
This is the second time that Laura Shamas (Chickasaw) is part of Native Voices' Retreat and Festival of New Plays, and she's thrilled to be back with Four Women In Red. The first time was for her play Chasing Honey in 2008, which also had workshops at Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto and the Native Festival at the Public Theater in New York. Her other forty plays include Circular, Picnic at Hanging Rock (adaptation), Portrait of a Nude, Lady-Like, The Other Shakespeare, Amelia Lives, and Talking Leaves (Winner, Garrard Best Play Award, Five Civilized Tribes Museum, OK). In 2021, Shamas was part of the Indigenous Writers Collaborative at Oregon Shakespeare Festival where she worked on Wuthering, a Native American adaptation of Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Also in 2021, her work was performed by Adobe Theater (Albuquerque), Spooky Action Theater (D.C.), and NSKIP Statuefest (N.Y.C.). Shamas’ play Four Women In Red began as part of Native Voices 2020 Short Play Festival and had a virtual full-length reading in 2021 at Transformation Theatre (Maryland). From 2018-2019, Shamas was one of four playwrights in-residence atAlterLab of AlterTheater, which produced Circular in 2019 at the ACT’s Costume Shop Theater in San Francisco, directed by Jeanette Harrison. In 2017, Shamas won the Von Marie Atchley Excellence in Playwriting Award from Native Voices at the Autry for her short play Seeds, which was published by Silk Road Review in 2020.