It’s Time to Move Beyond the Colonial Narrative

Narrative is a powerful tool. It enlightens, ignites critical thought, and invites reflection. However, narrative can also divide us, harm us, and manipulate us into believing false truths. The way narrative can be weaponized against the most marginalized in our communities is not a surprising revelation stemming from recent presidential elections, but rather it is something I have experienced my entire life as a Native person.

From correcting teachers in elementary school about the true history of my peoples to having to explain to theatre leaders (again) what Tribal Sovereignty means and why it must be central in all Native theatre processes, expanding the narrative is a daily task. Recently, I have found myself in conversation with multiple theatre leaders, artists, and agents about why Native artists are speaking out so passionately about representation. Many have confided that they haven’t fully understood how Tribal Sovereignty and broken treaties are relevant to theatrical work and have been confused by the relevance of points such as Elizabeth Warren’s false claims of Cherokee ancestry or why a production of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson from 2010 is still a sore spot for Native artists today.

The reason for this confusion is that the American theatre, like the rest of the country, has only heard one narrative—one that does not include the lived experiences of Native people. That narrative lurks because it was born from the foundation of this country. I use the term “American theatre” intentionally, defining it as an institutional hegemony in this country that erases and devalues non-western European theatremaking and theatre artists. The “American theatre” is the colonial theatre of the United States.

And the United States is a settler colonial state. That means this country only exists because of the displacement and genocide of Indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans (who were also Indigenous people being displaced) and their descendants (i.e. chattel slavery), and the establishment of an “American” identity that replaced this land’s existing cultures and governance with a new society rooted in European and Puritan values. The common narrative is that becoming this settler colonial state was a series of historical events that are now over. Colonization is no longer an “active” act. 

However, as Patrick Wolfe writes, “colonialism is a structure, not an event.” That means colonialism is not a singular, historical phenomenon. It’s not “in 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue” as most Americans are taught. Instead, it’s an intentional, interlocking, complex structure of policies, actions, and narratives that protect the “American” settler identity. The fact that 87 percent of current American textbooks do not teach about Native people past 1900, implying that we all died out, is active settler colonialism. The Supreme Court’s 2023 consideration of dismantling the Indian Child Welfare Act, an Act created in 1978 to protect tribal citizens from cultural genocide, is active settler colonialism. The United States making and breaking more than three hundred treaties with Native Nations with no consequences while tribes today still fight in every level of the judicial system for their guaranteed treaty rights is active settler colonialism. 

I haven’t even gotten into:

• The intentionally racist depictions of Native people in the media that uphold historical narratives about our eradication;
• The “myth of the wilderness” and the creation of the National Park Service as a deliberate attempt to steal Native land;
• How false claims of Native identity are tied to this idea of being “a real American”;
• Why reservations were created not only to restrict access to our lands but to also deliberately poison water supplies, distribute food rations with unhealthy foods to deliberately decrease the life expectancy of Native people, and continue the act of genocide;
• Why Indian Health Services is deliberately underfunded but always has the funding support for the forced sterilization of Native women;
• Why blood quantum mandates exist;
• Or how settlers attempted to steal land by lying (and even bribing) to get their names on the Dawes Rolls, thereby creating the common narrative that many Americans cannot “prove” alleged ancestry while still claiming ownership of Native identity.

Countless plays are about the “American dream,” but so few of those works reckon with that dream coming at the expense of Native people.

These examples and thousands of others solely exist to uphold the biggest narrative of them all: the American dream. Defined in many ways, the core of that dream is being a true American, someone who is rewarded with wealth and success such as land ownership (the white picket fence) through determination and hard work—but only after accepting the United States’s settler colonial narrative. However, the American dream can only exist if Native people don’t. 

Now, what does all of this have to do with the theatre? 

Besides the fact that Native artists carry all of this all the time, the theatre has a long history of upholding this harmful, colonial narrative. Countless plays are about the “American dream,” but so few of those works reckon with that dream coming at the expense of Native people. 

In my sophomore year of college at the University of Tulsa, my acting class was assigned Sam Shepard’s True West. The professor, a white man who had previously worked with Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, loved gritty, American plays. I remember sitting in class discussing the play and how it talks about the American dream using the metaphor of the American West. When I voiced what the play implicated for me, a Native person (and the only Native person in the department), my professor scoffed. He told me that I didn’t understand the play.

I began breaking down how both the American dream and the idea of the “West” are built upon the genocide of my peoples. If I were to be assigned any role in that play, we would have to find dramaturgical support for it. We would need to thoroughly and thoughtfully adapt the intention of Shepard’s work. It couldn’t make sense otherwise. My classmates rolled their eyes and snickered. My professor told me that I would do as I was assigned. The settler colonial narrative of the erasure of Native people remained intact, and I was silenced. Native artists are seldom given the opportunity to expand an existing narrative—especially when that narrative challenges the dream so many others pursue. 

It wasn’t until my time in the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA directing program over a decade later that I finally had the enthusiastic support to interrogate that “classic” American play, bust open its romanization of the “West,” and break down the settler colonial “American dream.” I directed a production of True West with a full cast of color and mixed Black and Indigenous leads. It was a poetic production that reinvigorated that play and gave it a new and deeper meaning that no longer came at the expense of Native people. I remember reading the review and feeling shocked because a white reviewer not only completely understood what I was doing with the production but also celebrated my voice and perspective—the narrative change worked! 

I began my journey in the theatre when I was just eight years old. Growing up, my family never patronized the theatre or any live performing arts. It wasn’t accessible to us on our reservation, let alone something we thought was for us, despite being the original storytellers on this land. Once I learned about theatre, I pursued it because it reminded me of our cultural practices of storytelling. I felt like I could maybe belong there. My dad and aunt are singers, and I’d learned so much from them, so I decided to pursue musical theatre. I was so excited to marry music and storytelling, completely naive to the fact that there were no Native musicals at that time—or musicals with non-racist depictions of Native characters. Even so, I kept pursuing musical theatre. At sixteen, auditioning for Snow White, I heard the director (a white man) turn to his assistant during my audition and loudly say, “This is Snow White, not Snow Brown.” But I kept pursuing.

I learned that Broadway, the Broadway every musical theatre girlie dreams about, was founded on the gross misrepresentation of Native peoples and the fetishization of Native women with shows like The Girl of the Golden West by David Belasco, The Squaw Man, and so many more that I really don’t want to list. Still, I kept pursuing.

I am a Native person first, an activist second, and an artist third.

Finally, in my junior year of college, I was told that I “looked like a Puerto Rican, so [I] was hard to cast” during my full faculty review. When I asked if there were any professional Native artists or playwrights that they could point me towards to deepen my education, I was told that I was the only Native theatre artist they knew. It was at that point I stopped pursuing musical theatre and performance in general. The colonial narrative that theatre was not a place for someone like me won again. 

I still hold a lot of that narrative trauma. Even though I am currently writing a Native musical intended for Broadway, and I work every day to create opportunities for Native youth to experience a different narrative than I did, the theatre still does not feel like a permanent place for me. I say all the time that I am a Native person first, an activist second, and an artist third. And while that is true for many reasons, one of the biggest is theatre’s continuing colonial narrative. I wish it weren’t. I hope it won’t always be. But it will be until something changes.

Native people are in your audiences, in your classrooms, in your applicant pools, in your Equity Principal Auditions (EPAs), and in your communities. Every single theatre in this country sits on stolen Native land. 

However, many celebrated plays and musicals actively harm us. So many beliefs about what theatre can be don’t include Indigenous storytellers and storytelling practices. Many people were never taught the full history of the American theatre—and that’s part of the self-perpetuating cycle that has made the settler colonial narrative so successful.

I have been called in as a consultant more times than I can count, and I always spend the entire time breaking down how and why the colonial narrative exists. Fortunately, many artists and theatres I have worked with take in the understanding and adapt their productions, companies, policies, etc. to be more equitable. Most, but not all. Shifting such a powerful, ingrained narrative is difficult. In every consultation I take and every workshop I teach with Groundwater Arts, I affirm that even though I was born in the Indian hospital on my reservation and raised with my Native family, I too had to change what I understood about the narrative.

Theatre is critical because it is uniquely positioned to spark change through storytelling. Activists, scholars, social scientists, and historians have said over and over that the biggest threat to progress is the narrative we tell ourselves. If we cannot imagine a better world, if we cannot create for ourselves a better narrative, then we cannot take action towards a better existence. Theatre exposes audiences to characters, stories, and transformations that address the current crisis of imagination, encourage conversations, and even ignite action. That is how you influence narrative change! That’s how I did it with True West, and that’s how I’m doing it now with the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere for my play Haunted, which I wrote with the intention of motivating different communities across the country to engage in Land Back. The play breaks down the narrative that Land Back is too large for one individual to participate in.

During the run of Haunted in Boston at Company One Theatre, multiple audience members actually gave their land back to the Mashpee Wampanoag. The play provided a clear directive and actionable steps that audience members could take. Additionally, the play covers a commonly unknown history that Quakers ran genocidal boarding schools for Native children. At the closing performance, a Quaker person shared that they’re going to be beginning a national initiative to return the remains of Native children buried at their schools, and she had come to the show three times. Rematriation and the return of our relatives is a major part of the Land Back Movement, and I am still emotional about the fact that my play resulted in more children finally going home. I’m hopeful about what other change came come from this show, especially as it centers the local Indigenous community wherever it is produced.

I firmly believe (and hundreds of years of history can back me up) that most people can open their minds and hearts when their understanding of a given narrative is expanded—and theatre is one of the best vehicles for that expansion. That is why all of this—our history, our legacy, our ongoing fight against settler colonialism—is so relevant for the theatre. If Native artists can stand confidently in solidarity with the American theatre, then together we can end the harmful colonial narrative. That’s why this series exists.

This is an invitation to the American theatre for shared understanding, for genuine partnership, and for communal healing.

Quita Sullivan, Betsy Richards, and Mary Kathryn Nagle are going to lay out decades of advocacy and illuminate the pattern of colonial silencing of Native voices in the theatre. Their conversation will enlighten us all to the legacy Native artists exist within, dismantle common arguments we’ve all heard in previous advocacy efforts (such as censorship and satire), and illustrate how one transgression is indicative of a larger pattern that the American theatre must take accountability for if we are to progress together. 

Then, Chingwe Padraig Sullivan will break down the takeaways of the Native Theatre Community Town Hall, which was hosted by HERE Arts Center in September 2025. That town hall was instigated when two New York City theatres refused to discuss preventative harm reduction and harm repair practices with thirty-seven Native artists who sent requests to leadership. To date, there has still been no response. However, the call for that action was the compounding product of decades of harm. This article, serving as a final call-in for the American theatre, will share tangible actions, steps forward, and optimism for our shared field. 

Next, Madeline Easley will detail a case study of a theatre and Tribal Nation working together while illuminating the responsibility that entailed. Theatres and artists will learn about a care-centered process that not only elevated an important Native story but also contributed to meaningful conversation and change. Interwoven with personal experience and political history, this essay will enable everyone to understand the weight Native artists carry and how we all can share the burden. 

Finally, the series will end with a beautiful, speculative narrative by Tomi Endter, set fifty years in the future. Her narrative paints a portrait of what a future nestled in equity, care, love, and community could look like, and how it would enrich theatre as we all know it. You will be able to imagine a better narrative and be inspired to act.

This is an invitation to the American theatre for shared understanding, for genuine partnership, and for communal healing. I implore you to continue reading the words of these Native artists if you become unsettled. I ask that you sit with the confrontation of truth. I hope that you end this week feeling ready to engage in a new narrative, one that celebrates us all.

Let’s end the colonial “American theatre.”