Indigenous Women Playwrights Series in Oregon

This spring, three Indigenous, female playwrights will present their work on Oregon’s top stages at the same time. It’s a ground breaking convergence of award-winning, distinguished playwrights.

Pacific Northwest audiences will have the opportunity to enjoy Manahatta, by Mary Kathryn Nagle (Cherokee), on stage at Oregon Shakespeare Festival Mar. 28 – Oct. 27; The Thanksgiving Play, by Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) to be performed at Artists Repertory Theatre from Apr. 1 – Apr 29; and And So We Walked, written and performed by DeLanna Studi (Cherokee) at The Armory from Mar. 31 – May 13.

It’s a groundbreaking convergence of award-winning, distinguished playwrights. Additionally, the three playwrights will participate in a series of panel discussions around Portland, Oregon in April:

Advance Gender Equity in the Arts: Monday, April 9 | 2 – 4 p.m.
Moderated by author Jacqueline Keller, the panel will focus on social justice and how telling Native stories can be used to re-humanize Native peoples. The panel will take place at The Old Church.

NAYA Family Center: Monday, April 9 | 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.
Moderated by Alyssa Macy (Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs) and live-streamed on HowlRound, the panel will discuss the responsibility of the artist to the community. *Join us for a reception before the panel at 6:30pm!

The Armory: Tuesday, April 10 | 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Moderated by Managing Director Cynthia Fuhrman, the panel will discuss women’s voices on stage as a national theater movement — how did we get here and what are the challenges still ahead?

This panel is presented by KeyBank, with additional support from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation.

We are thrilled to announce

  • Use the code 17629 for $35 tickets to Manahatta at Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
  • Use the code Thanksgiving35 for $35 tickets to The Thanksgiving Play at Artists Rep.
  • Use the code NACF for $10 off tickets to And So We Walked at The Armory.*

*Promotional code valid on seating areas 1-3 only. Not valid on previously purchased tickets, student tickets or in combination with other discounts. Subject to availability.

About Larissa FastHorse

Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) is an award winning playwright, director and choreographer. Larissa’s produced plays include What Would Crazy Horse Do? Urban Rez (Cornerstone Theater Company, ASU Gammage, NEFA National tour 2019-20), Landless and Cow Pie Bingo (AlterTheater), Average Family (Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis), Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: A Class Presentation (Native Voices at the Autry), Vanishing Point (Eagle Project) and Cherokee Family Reunion (Mountainside Theater). Her new comedy, The Thanksgiving Play, will be produced at Artists Repertory Theatre and Capital Stage this season. Larissa directed the critically acclaimed play, Our Voices Will Be Heard (Perseverance Theater Company) and is developing several new projects to direct with an emphasis on cross cultural community engaged work between Indigenous nations. Larissa won the PEN USA Literary Award for Drama, NEA Distinguished New Play Grant, Joe Dowling Annaghmakerrig Fellowship, AATE Distinguished Play Award, Inge Residency, Sundance/Ford Foundation Fellowship, Aurand Harris Fellowship, the UCLA Native American Woman of the Year and numerous Ford, Mellon and NEA Grants. She is a proud officer of the Board of Directors for TCG and represented by Jonathan Mills, Paradigm NY. hogenhorsestudio.com

About Mary Kathryn Nagle

Mary Kathryn Nagle was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She graduated summa cum laude from Tulane Law School where she was the recipient of the Judge John Minor Wisdom Award. She is a partner at Pipestem Law P.C., a firm specializing in the restoration of tribal sovereignty and safety for Native women. Her play Manahatta will be produced in Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2018 season, and her play Sovereignty will be produced in Arena Stage’s 2017-2018 Season. Other recent productions include AMERINDA’s presentation of Miss Lead at 59e59 from January 13-26, 2014 and Native Voices at the Autry’s production of Fairly Traceable in March 2017. Nagle is an alum of the 2013 Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater, and an alum of the Civilians 2014 Research & Development Group. Nagle is the Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, a program designed to develop Native voices in the American theater and ensure that Native plays reach the American stage.

About DeLanna Studi

Originally from Liberty, Oklahoma, DeLanna Studi is a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation. As an actor, her theater credits include Off-Broadway’s Informed Consentat the Duke Theater on 42nd Street, productions at major regional theaters such as Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage at The Armory (Astoria: Part One and Two), Cornerstone and Indiana Repertory Theater, the First National Broadway Tour of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play August: Osage County, and work at numerous community settings across Indian Country. DeLanna has originated roles in over seventeen world premieres including fourteen Native productions written about and by Natives. Her television roles in the Hallmark/ABC mini-series Dreamkeeper and Chris Eyre’s Edge of America have won her numerous awards. She has been an ensemble member of America’s only Equity Native American Theater Company, Native Voices at the Autry, for over 15 years. She has served her community for over eight years as the chair of SAG-AFTRA’s National Native Committee, where under her leadership they have produced an award-winning industrial film about American Indians in the entertainment industry and have created a “Business of Acting” workshop that tours Indian Country. DeLanna was the 2016 Butcher Scholar Award from The Autry Museum of the American West. She has been a mentor for the Mentor Artist Playwright Program, Young Native Playwrights and the American Indian Film Institute’s Tribal Touring Program. She has been an artist-in-residence at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the University of Wisconsin, where she co-taught Native American Oral Histories and Storytelling and American Indian in Film at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. Her most recent project, And So We Walked, is a frank, heartwarming and inspiring story about a contemporary Cherokee woman and her father who embark on an incredible 900-mile journey along the Trail of Tears to truly understand her own identity and the conflicts of her nation.