From Family Stories to High Caliber Theatre

Header photo: “Bound.” Written and Directed by Tara Moses. Photography by Joe Velez.

Tara Moses (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Muskogee/Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Oklahoma) is a playwright, director, artistic director, and a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. Her plays have been produced and developed with companies in New York, Connecticut, California, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. She is the Resident Artistic Director at AMERINDA, a 2018/19 fellow with the Intercultural Leadership Institute and winner of the Young Native Storytellers Contest.

Tara is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow and resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma. www.taramoses.com

It was a typical theatre performance of Tara’s play, so she was surprised when a young woman from the audience approached her afterward, crying.

“Are you okay?” Tara asked.

The young woman was a freshman at the University of Tulsa and told Tara how this was the first time she had left home. She was having a hard time finding a community and wanted to be a part of what she saw in that theatre performance. With no prior acting experience, she auditioned for Tara’s next play and landed a role.

“At my theatre company, we pride ourselves on community and giving people access to opportunities."

“She was so inspired by what she saw on stage that she wanted to be on it,” Tara says. “At my theatre company, we pride ourselves on community and giving people access to opportunities. The majority of our acting company never performed in a play until they came to us. We put on professional productions, and people don’t know the actors have never identified as an actor until that moment in time. So, I’m excited for her because she didn’t even know she is so talented. We could be kickstarting the next star.”

Rich experiences are part of every high caliber theatre performance Tara produces. She thinks of theatre as a community-building experience, which is at the heart of Native people connecting with one another.

For her First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellowship, Tara gathered stories from her family and community that she has longed to tell and wrote them into a play.

"Experiencing family stories in such a unique way is reminiscent of the storytelling we’ve done for a millennia."

“Whenever we have those moments of feeling [that] we don’t have the strength, we’re able to think back to our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, [and] great-great-great-grandparents who overcame the odds and continued to fight on,” she says. “Those stories are incredibly healing. Experiencing family stories in such a unique way is reminiscent of the storytelling we’ve done for a millennia. And theatre creates this unique feeling of being in a community. Alongside these stories, that gives us strength. It’s another way to share hope and inspiration for generations to come, while also supporting Native people in the theatre.”