Author Description

Leading scholars collect, introduce, and contextualize a diverse array of previously unpublished contemporary Native American and First Nations plays. Native American Plays: Indigenous Spaces features works that engage with the major themes, artists, and plays of Native American and First Nations theatre, with a special emphasis on the aesthetics, cultural meanings, and political goals of the genre of indigenous theatre as it interacts with the changing needs of Native North American peoples. The first collection of plays from multiple Native American and First Nations playwrights to be published in over a decade, this anthology presents new plays by leading indigenous theatre-makers across Native North America who are currently writing and producing a range of theatrical works. From a reimagining of Peter Pan in Madeline Sayet's The Neverland, to the incredible true story of a 900-mile odyssey in And So We Walked by DeLanna Studi, these plays pay homage to the wide breadth of Native Theatre being made. Each chapter opens with an artist's statement, written by its playwright, and critical commentary written by the editors, who weave the play's dramaturgy into broader discussions of Native storytelling and performative movements. Individually, these pieces offer exciting opportunities for performance and study; when collected together, these works elicit an even more nuanced socio-historical, philosophical understanding of Native Theatre across the 20th and 21st centuries. This volume acts as a direct companion to Methuen Drama's Critical Companion to Native American and First Nations Theatre and Performance.