Morgan Taylor, Reporter
LOS ANGELES – Native Voices at the Autry presents The New Adventures of Super Indian, the works of Muscogee descendant and enrolled Kickapoo Tribal member Arigon Starr.
Starr is an award-winning musician, actor, and playwright, and a renowned comic book writer and artist. Her work with Native Voices at the Autry includes her comedy musical “The Red Road” and the radio comedy “Super Indian.” A former Tulsa Artist Fellow, she created the romantic comedy Round Dance for the Oklahoma Indigenous Theatre Company in 2018 during her fellowship. She is a member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity.
“The New Adventures of Super Indian” is a spinoff of Starr’s original radio play, comedy “Super Indian” that debuted worldwide in 2007 on National Public Radio through a program developed by Native Voices.
At that time, Starr claimed the program had lost funding but she still wanted to create Super Indian. Starr continued to self-make the comedy and even published the comics as her own books since 2007.
The production of comedic superhero series is the first ever-audio episodes to be released by Native Voices as an alternative to the Zoom productions that had been taking place during the pandemic.
The audio episodes debuted online on the Autry’s website in April. However, due to the popularity the Autry has extended access to the episodes through their website until July 28.
Each audio includes an hour of Native American related comedy; Starr stated, “these are jokes for us (natives).”
Starr co-directed her production, played three different roles and worked with 16 different native cast members to play over 95 voices.
The main character, Super Indian/Hubert Logan is a normal guy who works as a janitor at the local bingo hall on the fictional reservation Leaning Oak. After eating radioactive commodity cheese, he develops superpowers. Through the course of the episodes the character faces villains while trying to maintain his normal life dealing with internal and external troubles as a young native man living on the reservation.
According to Starr the villains of Super Indian, like Wampum Baggs and Blud Kwan’Tum, represent different things including cultural appropriation messages.
“The whole thing has always been done for laughs and for humor,” Starr said. “Highlighting the fact that native people like to laugh no matter how dire the circumstances, we like to laugh.”
Starr claimed by using her own personal experiences, she’s able to express the different aspects of the life of a Native American by writing it in a comedic way.
Starr’s volume one and two of Super Indian can be purchased from the Redstick Gallery and on Amazon.
The audio episodes can be listened to until July 28 at: https://theautry.org/events/performing-arts/native-voices-presents-new-adventures-super-indian. Registration is required to listen for free.
Keep an eye out for the release of the comic books, “The New Adventures of Super Indian.”