Jay B Muskett (Navajo) is an indigenous writer who hails from the Nakibitoi New Mexico, on the border of the Navajo Nation. Growing up Rez while getting a “American” education, was well… confusing. Nonetheless, Muskett preserved and eventually earned two Bachelors of the Arts in Theatre and Digital Media, then an MFA in Dramatic Writing, all from the University of New Mexico. The work Muskett explores explores the spectrum from the deeply personal and therapeutical, (Merriweather Lewis gave up Scotch) to the profane (Porno Play), the comedic (Life Within the Cracks, Sheepherder’s Special) and the traumatic (1n2ian). It has been over five hundred years of writing from a colonial perspective of “what,” Indigenous people are. Apparently, that story is that Indigenous lives are cheap and are at the hands and mercies of others. Not anymore. Muskett’s work throws that away and attempts to tell the story of “who,” we are as indigenous peoples by exploring the truth of what was lost, some of which forever, some of which waiting to be rediscovered so as means to imagine what could be and announce that exactly who we are: Resilient, Proud, and Here.

Summary: Covid 19 has given theatre, which has been forced off the stage to the virtual realm that has put the power back into the hands of the artists while reaching beyond itself so that it is once again accessible to the masses. Time will tell if this is a rebirth or a phase but until then I finally have access and all it took was a pandemic.