So Let the Fireworks Come
Counter-programming the semiquincentennial with an older and deeper story that can’t be untold.
Category Archives: Beyond and Before: The Land’s Original Storytellers
What’s in a nation? And who defines its dominant narrative?
While the United States of America is busy celebrating its 250th birthday, we thought it would be an edifying corrective to turn to the land’s original storytellers. The Native theatre artists whose works we publish and excerpt in the following pages represent peoples and traditions that not only predate the U.S. founding but also persist in claiming, honoring, and preserving the lands of their ancestors. May the words of Lee Cataluna, Beth Piatote, Vickie Ramirez, and DeLanna Studi invite fresh collective reflection, exploration, and transformation.
An Excerpt From ‘Antíkoni’
This adaptation of Sophocles’s ‘Antigone’ centers a Nez Perce-Cayuse family tearing itself apart over the fate of ancestral remains.
An Excerpt From ‘Yuchewahkénh (Bitter)’
Vickie Ramirez’s play explores the erasure of Indigenous women, and what it takes to claim your voice and your culture.
That Banyan Tree
This creative work from Lee Cataluna explores what Maui means to the world in the wake of the Lahaina fires.
