Mask Maker: Sandra Lee Hughes
Decatur Metro | November 9, 2007
With her upcoming performance of Native American Coyote Tales at the Mask Center at the Little Five Points Community Center from Nov. 2nd-24th, mask maker, director and Decatur resident Sandra Lee Hughes has been getting a good deal of press lately.
First a Q & A with Creative Loafing a couple weeks ago: Gateway Performance Productions artistic director masks for Coyote Tales
And then featured in the City Life section of the AJC yesterday: Artist behind the masks
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This was not a very good show, unfortunate. I expected something that was more entertaining for the family and thought provoking. I was born in Arizona and do not know these stories. I wonder about the authenticity of what this company is doing or if they are taking “artistic license”. Thumbs down.
I did not enjoy the performance at all.
It was originally done in the following format:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030207231641/masktheatre.org/Gpages/Coyote.html
According to the AJC, they had to change it when they no longer had any Native Americans willing to work with them. I believe the tribe and council asked Sandra Hughes and Gateway Performance Productions to stop doing the work and making money off of and exploiting the tribe.
I was intrigued by the idea that a tribal government was getting upset about a play about Coyotes. An earlier blog said there was an article in the AJC to this effect. I search on-line through old issues dating back several years and found no reference to this article. Could someone be dealing in malicious lies? Some nasty12 year old girl perhaps? I was so incensed at being lied to that I called the theatre company and talked to one of their staff. I was told that an actor who had left the company had been trying to create problems. I was told that this actor finally admitted in writing to the company that neither he nor his tribe had any claim on the script that Sandra Hughes wrote. I guess we may have found our twelve-year-old girl.
Michael Delarose
I think the entry by about the tribe and the AJC is a hoax. I talked to the Gateway People. They said somebody tried to make trouble over this before. Come on! this is a play, not stories! They told me that the stories are in public domain and officially designated as Spanish. A Native American Man the Gateway people knew told them they were Native and I guess some Native people did learn and tell them, too.
P. Aylesworth
We saw the Coyote Tales show at my school last year. It was great! My friends really liked it too! I don’t know what that person is saying it wasn’t good. It was awesome!!
Curtisia DiHaviland
What odd comments! Sounds like the Gateway company is the one trying to “cause problems”. How sad. I wonder why…
Gateway Performance Productions no longer does this production. There’s a reason for that. It wasn’t any good and there is no one to blame for that but the performers. I thought Sandy and Mike had been doing this long enough that they were professionals? Why are they getting their friends to defend them online just because they got a bad review or two? That’s lame of them. It’s just a bad review. Learn from it and move on! Stop blaming others!
I believe the problem lies with Gateway first giving credit to others for this material and then later, committing a form of fraud by no longer giving this credit. That is artistically and morally wrong. Here is their company website where this show is listed as a colloboration:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040607030945/www.masktheatre.org/Gpages/Coyote.html
May I address the comments made here by a Gateway board member about the “actor who left the company”. I know all the parties involved in this. I worked in Little 5 Pts with all of you. I can tell you this actor you mention and his wife have never said one thing, at least to me, that was in the least bit ungracious about Gateway so I fail to see what the vendetta is here or why board members of this theatre company are making this drama online.
Very unbecoming to Gateway Peformance Productions, who should put their energies into their work.