The Responsibility We Carry

The Kinship of a Story

In late 2022, I received a call from Cherokee playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle. She told me the Kansas City Repertory Theater (KCRep) had inquired about commissioning her to write about Lyda Conley, the first Native American woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court. I shared Lyda’s Wyandot lineage, whereas Mary Kathryn did not.

“When someone reaches out to me asking if they can write a story about my family, I find it frustrating. So I thought I would reach out to you.” 

I laughed, trying to imagine a world where I wouldn't be endlessly excited for the celebrated playwright and Tribal Sovereignty lawyer to write a play about my people. Yet there was truth in her words, a shared understanding of the unique cultural inheritances of our peoples and responsibility in storykeeping. This act of generosity from another Native woman, enthusiastically supported by KCRep, marked the true beginning of my career.

The responsibility that Native American artists carry is ancient. Like the roots of the mighty Kansas bur oak tree, our unbroken branch of history, legacy, and future entwines the words we speak on stage with the consequence of time, which moves in an unbroken circle. Therefore, our actions affect our ancestors in the past, ourselves in the present, and our people in the future. Upholding Tribal values in our artistic lives goes far beyond perceived “political correctness,” whose mainstream perception waxes and wanes with the state of American politics. At all hours, we continue the ancestral fight for survival on our land. 

These are the stakes for Native artists in 2025; they have always been the stakes for us and were the stakes for me in 2022. I asked myself: Is it the right time? Is such a story even desired? And most importantly, will I be given permission? This was the first major commission of my career and one of the few Native commissions in the country. Its significance could not be understated. 

KCRep’s Copaken Stage is located three miles from the cemetery Lyda sought to protect in the 1920s, and I grew up in that same city just shy of a century later. In the 1950s, my grandfather and his mother returned to the area after our family was relocated to Oklahoma in the 1860s. Lyda Conley was my ancestor, connected through the line of Chief Tarhe, one of my people’s most famous leaders.

So I told Mary Kathryn, “Yes, I would like to write the story if it is desired by my relatives.” 

Native Americans and our stories are treated as radical in a political climate that can only sustain itself through the erasure of history and elimination of Native people to justify ongoing land and resource theft.

A Sovereign Commission

The leaders at KCRep (Angela Gieras, who is no longer with the theatre, and Stuart Carden) and I knew, through deep conversations preceding the process, that this play must be rooted in this long legacy of protecting people and fighting against injustice. Together, we understood that this play could not be written in a vacuum. It would require the perspectives of multiple Elders and community members. 

There was one problem: This was a story belonging to the Wyandots of Kansas, and I am a citizen of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma. Without permission, I could not write the play, regardless of my dreams for my work and career. There were more than 150 years of history and hurt to wade into, as well as legal battles still being fought for our survival. There were also questions surrounding sovereignty—shaped by oral histories that diverged at key moments in our removal journeys, which took our people from southern Ontario to Detroit, then Ohio, then to Kansas City, and then to Wyandotte, Oklahoma. And for me, back to Kansas again. 

The Wyandots/Wyandottes were forcibly removed at least four times, fracturing our community across different locations; yet we remain one people fighting to reunite with one another. That is the political vision I centered in my playwriting process as I began the first step in this work: reaching out to Elders and Conley family members. 

This is the relational value Native Artists work within, because we understand that well-funded, platformed art about our Tribes is one of the few representations our people have in media. Art is the primary touchstone for public perception of us and determines national support for our active appeals for our land, autonomy, and safety. The community care practice of permission and consent stands in contrast to inappropriately applied Western perceptions of censorship, which are often rooted in histories that other countries carried here, rather than the Indigenous realities and traditions of this land.

After permission to tell the story was granted, we began with a visit to the Huron Cemetery, accompanied by Judith Manthe, Chief of the Wyandots of Kansas; Wyandot Tribal members; my own family, who are members of the Oklahoma tribe; and KCRep staff. Chief Manthe led us through the cemetery's history and found that a group from the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma was also there, along with Chief Billy Friend. Amazed, I turned to KCRep artistic director Stuart Carden and blurted, “Am I being punked? What are the odds that we would all be here today?”

We laughed, but of course. There are always larger forces at work when Native Americans tell their own stories on their land.

Together, we discussed our purpose in this sacred place, the play, and the significance of telling this story now, when unmarked graves were being discovered at Indian boarding school sites, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was being challenged in the Supreme Court, and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was finally reauthorized after much delay. Now, looking back just three years later, these events were harbingers of what was to come in this country—events that the general public largely knew nothing about due to the intentional lack of attention on Native American issues. This pattern is mirrored in US theatre, leaving the public with missing information critical to shaping the future of this stolen land. 

The Missing Thread

The widespread exclusion of Native Americans from stages that exist on our stolen land is both a direct result of colonization and a tool weaponized by the colonizer. The myth of our extinction or, conversely, our supposed savagery, serves as the foundation for many celebrated theatrical works, which assert a false, nostalgic history that serves individual stories and upholds colonial propaganda. The missing, silent, or satirized Indian is rarely noted because asserting our presence in its power is a political act that throws the American dream into sharp relief as a settler fantasy, a vision that can only be built on top of Indigenous bodies. Thus, Native Americans and our stories are treated as radical in a political climate that can only sustain itself through the erasure of history and elimination of Native people to justify ongoing land and resource theft.

As artists, we know that collective truth-telling is the only path forward. On this land, working with, not in the absence of, Native Americans is the key to telling authentic stories that richly honor the many perspectives that now also inhabit this land. Because this land must be stewarded by its Indigenous people and protected by Tribal Nations, who play an active political role in a country that threatens to dismantle us. Otherwise, the land will be bought, extracted from, polluted, and destroyed in a cycle that feeds upon itself.

Colonizing forces rely on narrativized propaganda to shape the public's apathy and contempt toward Indigenous issues in their own country to justify colonizing efforts abroad. To serve the colonial status quo, these conspiring forces allow our stories to be distorted, pitted against other communities who did not come to this country willingly, or untold entirely, with little outrage. It is precisely what my work, and that of other Native artists, fights against by bringing complex Native stories to light. And once they find the light, they are indeed complicated.

My commission culminated in a public reading just eight months after I began working on the play, where an audience of over three hundred gathered to hear Representatives for Those at Peace read for the first time. In the audience were members of the Wyandots of Kansas and the Wyandottes of Oklahoma, who saw themselves reflected in their ancestors onstage. For many, this was their first experience in theatre. The stakes were high. After the reading, I entered onstage before my audience. I sat, nervous and warm under the stage lights, as my people responded to my play. Many loved the metaphors, which weaved ancestral knowledge into contemporary monologues; others enjoyed the drama and humor. Still others pointed out a few historical inaccuracies. Then, I braced. One Elder, whom I deeply admire and respect, raised her hand. I noticed it was shaking slightly. 

“Why did you write our ancestors with innuendo? They would not have allowed themselves to be objects of desire. Lyda was a preschool teacher after all.”

Despite my initial tension, I felt myself opening. 

“It didn’t sit right with you. I understand.” I told her.

It doesn’t sit right with me either. When I read the news reports covering Lyda’s occupation of the cemetery before her court battle, I detected undertones of fetishization, which would have been immensely dangerous for Native women in that time period. This violent undercurrent may not have been overtly recorded in history, as it was not proper to discuss openly. But I felt that this danger must be present in the play to honor the extent of Lyda’s bravery. Often, that danger manifests initially as humor from the perpetrators. I know as Native women we have all experienced this, and so I felt it was a truth I must share.

I must balance my own artistic voice, which heavily favors speculative elements of story, with those of my community, who often prefer firm historical accuracy. In all things, we work towards equilibrium.

The Elder nodded and relaxed slightly. So did I. This conversation was not done, and it remains an element in the story I continue to refine to this day. But this exchange taught me more about what we owe to our living, breathing people who will one day sit in the audience absorbing our art. In my work, I must balance my own artistic voice, which heavily favors speculative elements of story, with those of my community, who often prefer firm historical accuracy. In all things, we work towards equilibrium. Balance in our kinship networks. This is the role of a Native artist. 

From Removal to Return: A Journey for the Living

I write now as a more experienced playwright. The responsibility of this first commission stands in stark contrast to the colonial practices I have observed in our industry, where Native culture and trauma are carelessly mined by non-Native creative teams to serve narratives that dehumanize us for convenient metaphors. As I consider the trajectory of myself and other emerging Native artists, I worry: What incentive is there to nurture Native authorship when our stories, names, and aesthetics can be extracted and displayed as representation instead? These practices mirror the larger practice of settler colonialism, which attempts to replace one population with another while often adopting the look and feel of the first culture without the community responsibility to its surviving people, distorting stolen history. 

As a Native artist, I feel my body leaving itself in micro-moments in our industry. For example, when I walk into many theatrical spaces, I can feel the gnawing absence of Native people. In these moments, when my eyes can find the names and knowledge of Native American tribes, but not the Native Americans themselves, I experience profound disconnection. It reminds me of Osage and Kiowa playwright P. C. Verrone’s play Bad Medicine, where settlers suck the souls from Natives to gain their cultural knowledge and then display their empty bodies in a museum. What P. C. highlights is the ultimate goal of colonization, and theatres serve this goal as long as they continue to exclude the Indigenous peoples of this land. Worse, some do this while allowing others to evoke or tokenize us in satire, slurs, and metaphors that further traumatize us and uphold the status quo. Then, when we protest these acts publicly, we are further disenfranchised and excluded privately, and the silent, devastating cycle begins again. Capitalistic, watered-down versions of general Nativeness are then affirmed as being easier to engage with and produce, as they do not require the deep community work I described in my process with KCRep and the Wyandot Tribe of Kansas. Perhaps the stereotypical “leather and feathers” form of commercialized Native identity is tantalizing to the ever-cash-strapped theatre, while they overlook the cultural and relational richness that Native Americans bring to the table, our own table. The table is, after all, on our ancestral land. But there are many seats. And they all live in the light.

I dream of a theatre where Native Americans are not accepted as necessary collateral damage in the name of art. No one is owed monetization of our names, languages, histories, or our pain; Instead, I dream of a future where we are treated as a living, feeling relation worthy of empathy, inclusion, and care. Where our bodies knit themselves back together again, and we can feel whole in these spaces that have lovingly held others in art. I know a world exists where Native American artists and our families, friends, and Tribal communities are welcomed into theatrical spaces to see ourselves onstage; it is happening now, in partnership with Native artists at KCRep, Seattle Repertory Theater, Geva Theater, Santa Fe Playhouse, Perseverance Theater, the New Harmony Project, New York Theatre Workshop, and Company One, to name a few. It is happening at our beloved Native institutions: Native Voices, Spiderwoman Theater, Safe Harbors New York City, New Native Theater, Oklahoma Indigenous Theater Company, and others. The cycle renews with my partnership with Soho Rep and the Playwrights Center as we prepare to welcome the Native community Off-Broadway for my Venturous Playwrights Fellowship world premiere production of Feast for the Dead. The play calls upon an ancient mourning practice to lay to rest the remains of the deceased after a zombie apocalypse and stop the cycle of colonial violence. It looks to the old to become new again. 

It is said that the “victor” writes their own version of history, lacking empathy for those who stood against their dream of unfettered conquest. Yet my people were not conquered.

To my knowledge—and pending future New York City season announcements—this could mark the first world premiere of a Native American play produced by an Off-Broadway company as part of its mainstage season, rather than as a guest production. For me, gratitude and excitement for this opportunity coexist with that lingering sense of severance when I consider the many Native artists who came before me, whose rich work remains shelved despite its foundational impact on my own. In 2025, the elevation of Native-authored work is one of the most important tools we have to combat the persistent apathy this country feels toward its original inhabitants, feelings intentionally fostered by rendering us “stoic” and “invisible” and denying us control over our own stories. It is said that the “victor” writes their own version of history, lacking empathy for those who stood against their dream of unfettered conquest. Yet my people were not conquered. 

When I close my eyes and bring into focus that community vision for my first commission process, I am reminded of a communication lesson a Wendat Elder details in The Heritage of the Circle. Author George Sioui states:

The essential quality of a Chief lies in his mastery of the art of oration and, therefore, the power to speak for those he is called to represent. The word “chief” specifically denotes a person who is best suited to speak for the people unanimously, with an unbreakable thread of communication and shared desires. This means ensuring the word was respected, accurately transmitted, and acted upon.

The responsibility of truthful communication on behalf of the community is older than American democracy, but as a Native playwright leaning forward into time’s circle, it renders my people’s art uniquely captivating as we reframe the question, “Why this play, why now?”

Instead, together, we ask the American theatre, “Why not a Native play right now?”