Rhiana Yazzie

Rhiana Yazzie

Rhiana Yazzie is a Navajo playwright, director, and filmmaker based in the Twin Cities and is artistic director of New Native Theatre, the most consistently producing professional theatre in the Upper Midwest dedicated to producing Native stories. Rhiana is a 2018-20 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow and a 2018-17 Sally Ordway Award winner for Vision. She’s been a Playwrights’ Center fellow multiple times (...
Rhiana Yazzie is a Navajo playwright, director, and filmmaker based in the Twin Cities and is artistic director of New Native Theatre, the most consistently producing professional theatre in the Upper Midwest dedicated to producing Native stories. Rhiana is a 2018-20 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow and a 2018-17 Sally Ordway Award winner for Vision. She’s been a Playwrights’ Center fellow multiple times (McKnight 2016/17 and Jerome 2006 & 2010), and has just completed QUEEN CLEOPATRE AND PRINCESS POCAHONTAS (2019) a play commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater for American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle. Her newest script, NANCY (2020), inspired by the research from her American Revolutions play, is a biographical and socio-political look at Nancy Reagan through the eyes of a full-blood Navajo woman as it examines the ways the oppression of Native America can be complicit in the valorization of white supremacy and explores internecine racism within the skin color spectrum of being Native American.

Rhiana also writes for Young Audiences, THREE SNOW BEARS (Stages Theatre Company), CHILI POD (LaJolla Playhouse), WILD HORSES (New Visions New Voices, Bonderman Symposium), RAINBOW CROW (Stepping Stone Theatre for Young Audiences), are a few of her TYA works.

She is in post production with her first feature film, A WINTER LOVE, which she is the writer/director and is starring in. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Masters of Professional Writing where she produced events featuring Stephen Hawking, Madeleine Albright, Paula Vogel, Herbie Hancock, and Spalding Gray. She has been a production coordinator on films directed by Musa Syeed (A STRAY) and Dolly Wells (GOOD POSTURE).

Plays

  • Nancy by Rhiana Yazzie
    Cast: 
    7–11
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    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic + 2 more
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    Keyword: navajo, Nancy Reagan + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic, experimental, political
    Keyword: navajo, Nancy Reagan, nuclear waste, economy, 1980s, Native American
    Nancy is a loosely based bio on first lady Nancy Reagan, a descendant of Pocahontas. The story details how internalized racism over skin color, misogyny, and economic mobility create classism and racism inside tribal communities and shows how the most oppressed can become complicit in white supremacy.

    Nancy is a loosely based bio on first lady Nancy Reagan who is a descendant of Pocahontas, and...
    Nancy is a loosely based bio on first lady Nancy Reagan, a descendant of Pocahontas. The story details how internalized racism over skin color, misogyny, and economic mobility create classism and racism inside tribal communities and shows how the most oppressed can become complicit in white supremacy.

    Nancy is a loosely based bio on first lady Nancy Reagan who is a descendant of Pocahontas, and the story of a Navajo mother and daughter, Esmeralda and Jacqueline. While Nancy tries to control the future through astrology and New Age-ism, Esmeralda fights nuclear waste storage on her homelands and while her daughter develops a debilitating anxiety disorder. The story details how internalized racism, skin color, misogyny, and economic mobility create classism and racism inside tribal communities revealing how some become gladly complicit with white supremacy when it benefits their own desires.
  • QUEEN CLEOPATRE AND PRINCESS POCAHONTAS by Rhiana Yazzie
    Cast: 
    11–30
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    Genre: adventure, biography + 7 more
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    Keyword: Pocahontas, revisionist + 7 more
    Genre: adventure, biography, comedy, dark comedy, drama, period, political, satire, tragedy
    Keyword: Pocahontas, revisionist, indigenous women, indigenous language, pilgrims, 17th Century, England, colonialism, Indigenous
    QUEEN CLEOPATRE AND PRINCESS POCAHONTAS is the fantastic story of Cleopatre, Pocahontas' older more influential sister who was erased from history by the men who wrote it. Cleopatre takes an epic journey from her homeland in Tsenecommacah (Jamestown) to England to Massachusetts where she finds herself amongst Pilgrims and Praying Indians before she makes her way home at last. Told with a comedic touch, the...
    QUEEN CLEOPATRE AND PRINCESS POCAHONTAS is the fantastic story of Cleopatre, Pocahontas' older more influential sister who was erased from history by the men who wrote it. Cleopatre takes an epic journey from her homeland in Tsenecommacah (Jamestown) to England to Massachusetts where she finds herself amongst Pilgrims and Praying Indians before she makes her way home at last. Told with a comedic touch, the play asks how can you maintain your humanity in the cruelest of times when your home and world is being destroyed. Basically, just think about the 2016 election ;)
  • Ady by Rhiana Yazzie
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic + 3 more
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    Keyword: navajo, Surrealist + 5 more
    Genre: biography, docudrama/historic, drama, experimental, political
    Keyword: navajo, Surrealist, Surrealism, Native American, indigenous women, Black women, French
    A collision of colonialism, DNA, Navajo culture, sexuality, dancing, writing, the island of Guadeloupe, France, and the art of Man Ray, Picasso, and other early 20th century artists inspire this play about a real life surrealist muse. ADY a multi character play, is performed by two women:

    A young Navajo woman, Adrienne, finds a 1937 photograph of a Black Caribbean dancer, Ady, that is her mirror...
    A collision of colonialism, DNA, Navajo culture, sexuality, dancing, writing, the island of Guadeloupe, France, and the art of Man Ray, Picasso, and other early 20th century artists inspire this play about a real life surrealist muse. ADY a multi character play, is performed by two women:

    A young Navajo woman, Adrienne, finds a 1937 photograph of a Black Caribbean dancer, Ady, that is her mirror image. This opens the door to a moment before WWII when the surrealist movement was blooming in France. Characters like Pablo Picasso and his lover, Dora Marr, surrealist photographers Man Ray and Lee Miller guide Adrienne through her mother’s suicide back home on the reservation. As it tells the story of a surrealist muse, the play shows how easy it is to be lost to history, especially if you were a little brown woman.
  • Chili Pod by Rhiana Yazzie
    Cast: 
    4
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    Genre: musical, young audiences
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    Keyword: Oaxaca, Mixtec + 5 more
    Genre: musical, young audiences
    Keyword: Oaxaca, Mixtec, navajo, San Diego, Chilena, Native American, Indigenous
    Like many San Diegans, Carmen and her family moved from Mexico for a better life. But unlike her classmates, Carmen speaks neither English nor Spanish: she speaks Mixtec, a language of the indigenous people of Oaxaca. Frustrated and confused, Carmen must become the hero of her own story, embracing her heritage while learning to make a home in a whole new world. Chile Pod explores one young person’s journey to a...
    Like many San Diegans, Carmen and her family moved from Mexico for a better life. But unlike her classmates, Carmen speaks neither English nor Spanish: she speaks Mixtec, a language of the indigenous people of Oaxaca. Frustrated and confused, Carmen must become the hero of her own story, embracing her heritage while learning to make a home in a whole new world. Chile Pod explores one young person’s journey to a place of belonging, and celebrates diversity, compassion and Oaxacan culture.
  • Wild Horses by Rhiana Yazzie
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: young audiences
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    Keyword: Tongva, Native American + 4 more
    Genre: young audiences
    Keyword: Tongva, Native American, bullying, alcoholism, puppetry, California history
    Rose Mary, a 12 year old Tongva Native American girl from the big city of Los Angeles, takes a fantastic journey into her city’s and family’s history as she learns to trust her recovering alcoholic father again when he suddenly announces he’s leaving for the summer to go tame wild horses in the desert. The play is brought to life through an ensemble of five actors, found object puppetry, and imaginative characterizations.
  • 2012: The Musical! by Rhiana Yazzie
    Cast: 
    7–10
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 3 more
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    Keyword: Native American, American Indian
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, fantasy, musical, science fiction
    Keyword: Native American, American Indian
    2012: THE MUSICAL! is a romp through the end of the world as we know it! Inspired by the hoopla of the end of the Mayan calendar, it’s the comedic story of Natives living, working, and loving on Minneapolis’ infamous Franklin Avenue, from AIM inspired warriors to grant writing social service workers, and wannabe rockstars, the play looks at the year 2012 from a truly urban Native perspective. Expect the...
    2012: THE MUSICAL! is a romp through the end of the world as we know it! Inspired by the hoopla of the end of the Mayan calendar, it’s the comedic story of Natives living, working, and loving on Minneapolis’ infamous Franklin Avenue, from AIM inspired warriors to grant writing social service workers, and wannabe rockstars, the play looks at the year 2012 from a truly urban Native perspective. Expect the return of Indian Alien ancestors who come to fix the ills of society complete with the arrival of glam rock ancestors and dancing neon buffalo.