Centering Relationships to Grow Guthrie Theater’s Native Advisory Council

In early March of 2020, I was at work at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota on a Saturday. I met Ernest Briggs who was teaching a free, all-ages, all-abilities acting class for the Indigenous community as part of the theatre’s growing commitment to Native artists. When Ernest first proposed this all-ages class, I didn’t understand how it would work, but I trusted him to know how he wanted to teach in his community. This day was our third of eight classes, so the students were getting comfortable, and I could clearly see his brilliance. Grandparents and grandkids, moms and cousins, friends and aunties—no one was competing, everyone was delighted to play and learn. I felt a shift from the first day when they walked through the heavy glass doors nervous and tentative, worried that maybe they were late or that we weren’t for real. Today they walked in—at whatever time they arrived—and knew where to go.

In the studio next door, Mark Rylance was working with an ensemble of local actors on a new piece called Steel. Among the group of Twin Cities luminaries was Isabella Star LaBlanc who, along with Ernest, served on the Guthrie’s then-newly-formed Native Advisory Council (NAC) and performed in the previous summer’s Native community performance Stories from the Drum. She chatted with the students and introduced them to her castmates. If you’ve participated in theatre, you know this feeling. Everyone mingles by the coffee pot and on the couches while waiting for class to start or break to end. While handing off monologue printouts I remembered to appreciate that right in that moment everyone belonged. A week later our class was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but in some very small and undeniable ways, on that day we planted seeds that would grow.

Fast forward to the fall of 2021: Native Advisory Council member Adrienne Zimiga-January and I were in a Zoom room with director Oliver Butler and writer/performer Heidi Schreck discussing the upcoming production of What the Constitution Means to Me at the Guthrie. We were the first stop on their post-Broadway tour, and they were the Guthrie’s first in-person production since our doors shut eighteen months prior because of COVID.

This meeting came together quickly, but Heidi and Oliver were more than ready to hear Adrienne. At the last NAC monthly meeting, I’d casually mentioned that Constitution was opening at the Guthrie, and I had tickets to previews if anyone wanted. The group didn’t know the show but had a lot of questions about a play about the Constitution happening without their awareness. I had not seen this coming but understood their perspective as soon as they started talking.

“With a play about the United States Constitution, why wasn’t the NAC consulted?”

“Will there be supplemental information in the program?”

“Will there be a live curtain speech?”

In the notes from that 26 September meeting I wrote, “Rebecca explained that this is a tour and so she has had very little to do with it, however, this was a fuck up on her part, which she will now work to correct in time for first preview on Sept 30.” Using the connections of national advocates like Larissa FastHorse, who’d been working with the NAC, and the extra time people had because of the pandemic, we managed to get in this Zoom room with the play’s artistic leadership twenty-four hours after that revelation.

Adrienne had been able to watch the film of Constitution and came with a clear idea of what would be supportive to our work. Each NAC member brings different talents to the group, and alongside her love of and skill for performance, Adrienne is a graphic designer and project manager. Heidi and Oliver understood that their play had a long way to go in order to acknowledge a Native perspective on the Constitution—a document that declared a new country on the homeland of over one thousand distinct Tribal Nations—but were enthusiastically ready to see how the production could go further.

Adrienne shared personal stories from her family experience as Oglala Lakota in South Dakota, how the production resonated, and also what she felt was missing. By the end of the Zoom, we’d agreed to a few concrete actions:

• Adrienne would work with Oliver and Heidi to find a place within the play to add a land acknowledgement. Since this was a tour, it would need to be written anew with each location, reflecting the local Tribal Nation(s).
• Adrienne would design a sticker that says “YOU ARE ON NATIVE LAND” that would reflect the Dakota homeland where the Guthrie sits. These stickers would be affixed to each of the pocket Constitutions handed out to the audience during the Oliver would ask each venue on the tour to work with a local Indigenous artist to design a new sticker reflecting the local Tribal identity/ies.
• Rebecca would organize post-show discussions with Dakota and Ojibwe perspectives and manage the sticker project, including getting Adrienne compensated for this unexpected work.

We did it all in two days—except for the post-shows because, after consideration, the NAC decided no Native person should have to discuss that show with a largely white audience. All that week during previews, Adrienne designed an amazing sticker and workshopped the land acknowledgement moment with Oliver. At first it was playing as a joke about land acknowledgements, and Oliver was clear that this was not the intention; by changing the location of the language they could impart actual feelings rather than a joke about well-meaning white people. Adrienne was his trusted partner in continuing to tweak, finding the best placement and delivery until they were both satisfied.

The stickers went on the Constitutions and soon turned into a full-blown merch campaign in the Guthrie’s gift shop that today raises money for local Native-led organizations in the Twin Cities. The image Adrienne created is on t-shirts, enamel pins, bookbags, magnets, and more. The NAC still selects a different organization each year, and 100 percent of the profits go directly there. The first year the items raised $7,370 for Ikidowin Acting Ensemble, and the second year they raised $10,375.37 for the Minneapolis American Indian Center. Eventually the Downtown Minneapolis Neighborhood Association (DMNA) asked if they could put the image on banners, which let Adrienne and I kick off a whole new process in working with Native and non-Native community members to decide if this should happen and what the image and language should be. In April of 2023 banners went up all over downtown Minneapolis, surrounding the Guthrie with the words “YOU ARE ON NATIVE LAND.”

This doesn’t mean all the Native people who came to Constitution felt good. Some let us know how painful it was to sit in the audience of mostly non-Native people at this particular show. No matter what Adrienne and Oliver did to tweak the language, the play was not written by an Indigenous writer or for an explicitly Indigenous audience. Our mutual commitments to each other allowed for Native audience members to share their experience and for the Guthrie staff to listen. Because Constitution wasn’t the first, last, or only time Indigenous community members were partnering with the Guthrie, we could hold disappointment and respond to what we learned. By staying in the room together and being honest, we could grow trust.

A regional theatre belongs to the people of that region, beginning with the people who have ancestrally been here longer than anyone else.

Meanwhile, Ernest kept teaching classes, on Zoom and then eventually in person. Other Native theatre artists taught as well—Marisa Carr, Marcie Rendon, and Sam Aros Mitchell. We added a new member to the NAC, Mike Swan from three hours away in Pine Point. He brought thirty young people to see The Tempest with support from White Earth Nation and the Guthrie. NAC members Isabella Star LaBlanc and Roya Taylor consulted on the development of Karen Zacarias’s world premiere Shane, which led to a pivotal Native character being written into the show. The Guthrie hired Roya to record the lobby announcements for the whole season and she became the voice of the Guthrie, except crucially for the land acknowledgement, which we understood was always something the Guthrie should give. Most significantly, the seven members of the NAC kept meeting monthly, staying connected to each other and to the promise that a regional theatre belongs to the people of that region, beginning with the people who have ancestrally been here longer than anyone else.

During all those years, we were also collaborating with Ty Defoe and Larissa FastHorse to make a beautiful play about, by, and for the Native community in the Twin Cities called For the People. When For the People premiered at the Guthrie in October of 2023 it made history in all kinds of ways, notably as the first play written and performed by Native artists in the Guthrie’s sixty-year history. Commissioned by the Guthrie through a grant from the Joyce Foundation, Ty and Larissa used a community-driven process to write much of the show, which also makes it one of the very few plays commissioned by a large regional theatre through a community engagement process that ended up having a fully produced run in a mainstage subscriber season.

What is a relationship but a continuous opportunity to think of someone and have them think of you, to change your behavior because it would make them happy, to open the doors wider so that the people you love—and the people they love and all the people who love them—know they can come inside and mingle by the coffee pot?

Most of the articles about For the People mention the “community engagement” process, calling out the talking circles we organized throughout the development period. As the community engagement (CE) director at the Guthrie from 2019-2023, I always feel like this is only a whisper of what was actually going on.

The talking circles would not have been possible without any of these other relationships, commitments, or shared learnings. So often those working in the regional theatre are looking at the plays as an eight-week or year-long commitment to a “topic” or a “theme,” but our practice is relational and good relationships are forever. We are allowed to tell each other’s stories because of our commitment to each other, otherwise it’s hollow, transactional, and damaging. What is a relationship but a continuous opportunity to think of someone and have them think of you, to change your behavior because it would make them happy, to open the doors wider so that the people you love—and the people they love and all the people who love them—know they can come inside and mingle by the coffee pot? Building welcome doesn’t come from one play or one story circle or one class. We authentically become part of each other’s lives by understanding “community” to be a verb.

I left the Guthrie in 2023 to move back home to Rhode Island to steward work for the City of Providence’s Department of Art, Culture and Tourism, before For the People went into production. I left the work of community engagement at the Guthrie in the hands of the CE associate Blossom Johnson, the incoming CE director Amanda White, and the Guthrie staff, the Native Advisory Council, and the community itself.

When I came back to see the show in November of 2023, I happened to be there on the same day Lieutenant (Lt) Governor Peggy Flanagan declared it “For the People Day” and named the work as integral Minnesota culture. The theatre was packed with all kinds of people—notably more Native people than I had ever seen at a season subscriber show. Though the room was loving and warm, while the Lt Governor gave her speech an audience member interrupted from the back, naming wrongs happening to their Indigenous community that the government was ignoring. It was a tense moment, but it was also so real. I was overwhelmed by what it meant that this Native audience member had the opportunity to safely yell at their Lt Governor, a White Earth Ojibwe woman, at the Guthrie Theater because of the conditions we’d fostered over years of relationships.

While I experienced the For the People production as total joy, I am now an insider-outsider. Many inside the process are both incredibly proud of what they made and tell me that it was hard. Guthrie staff were pushed in ways that didn’t feel easy and local Native artists expected inclusion in ways that did not always materialize. By leaving I have to grapple with my accountability to the relationships I began. No one can be replaced. Organizations are not people. As my friend, the brilliant maker Mauricio Salgado says, “Organizations help us organize ourselves so that we can find each other.” Leaving Minnesota and returning home to Rhode Island, I have not stopped my care for the NAC community or the Guthrie, an organization that let me find people I will cherish and know forever, but it is no longer my role to steward relationships on behalf of the Guthrie.

My hope is that everyone carries the work forward in ways that feel transformative, knowing that the Guthrie has been a small part of this undeniably exciting time for Indigenous performance, while remembering that changing the Guthrie was never the only goal. These relationships fostered at the Guthrie exist in powerful collaborations across the Twin Cities and beyond.

When I gave a first draft of this article to Native Advisory Council member and For the People assistant director Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha, she responded with generosity and honesty:

What do you want people to understand about this process when they read it? If I'm a maker hoping to do an Indigenous collab what should my takeaway from it be? . . . What I love about your article is that it is clear from that timeline that this work is not easy, nor can it be rushed. I wonder if there's more to say about that. Not to scare people away from doing these kinds of actions but rather to make clear that we are no longer settling for less than time to make relations.

I am grateful to Sara for prompting me to find the direction I am aiming for:

To people who lead arts institutions: Do not be afraid of change when it is coming from the people in your community who have not been included but are ready to show up. Listen and believe your staff who are growing those relationships. Enjoy and support the journey. Ensure that your marketing and development teams are nurturing the changes with the Old Guard of your institution—boards, donors, press. Never let their fear stop this blossoming. It’s not about the play or the exhibition, but it’s also not not about all those things. At the end of the day, those offerings are our most powerful outward expression of care.

To people being invited in: Only do it if you really want to. Don’t let anyone make you the only one in the room. Remember that they need you way more than you need them. Don’t be afraid to tell the truth. The staff member you are working with is communicating your needs to a staff, board, and audience. Your desires become their map, so be as clear as you can–including disagreements you have or things that you’re still working through.

To anyone taking on community engagement work: Being a bridge is good and necessary work, but there are days when you feel trampled as you stretch your arms to hold both sides. I hope you have a circle of people doing this work you can lean on. If you ever want to talk through anything, you can reach out to me.

To all non-Native people: It is our privilege to collaborate with the Indigenous communities on Turtle Island. Given the history that extends to today, we are lucky that any Native people want to build the future with us. Every project, initiative, business, or idea that exists on this continent should include and consider the people whose land we are on. When local Native community doesn’t return our call or email, that doesn’t mean we stop trying. We need to listen better, show up more, read, and educate ourselves. There’s good reason they don’t trust us, and yet the work we can do together is the most joyful and meaningful to be found.

Endless thanks to the past, present, and future members of the Native Advisory Council and staff at the Guthrie Theater.