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New Miami publication brings attention to Native American Women's Theatre

04/30/2009

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Performing Worlds into Being: Native American Women’s Theater

The Miami University Press announces the release of Performing Worlds into Being: Native American Women’s Theater, a book/DVD project that emerged from a conference held at Miami University in 2007.

Edited by Miami faculty from English, Theatre, and University Libraries, the volume combines five original plays with academic articles, production histories, and interviews with Native American women writers and performers. Subject matter of the dramas covers the Trail of Tears, the contemporary Native family, and the interweaving of generations and memories; the plays celebrate strong women and men and honor cultural and spiritual values.

Academic articles and performance pieces along with artist statements and interviews give insight into Native theater and performance aesthetics and issues. This book is important for readers interested in Native American culture and contemporary issues, the place of theater in the Native community and of Native American theater in the world of theater and performance, and Native American literature.

Performing Worlds into Being: Native American Women’s Theater. Edited by Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, associate professor of theatre; Kelli Lyon Johnson, assistant profesor of English; and William A. Wortman, humanities librarian emeritus and director of the Native American Playwrights Archive. The DVD is edited by librarian Susan H. Wortman.

Publication continues the work of Miami University’s Native American Women Playwrights Archive, centered in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections Department of University Libraries. NAWPA was founded in 1997 to collect and make accessible plays by Native women playwrights and to encourage productions, public awareness, and continued writing. It contains nearly one hundred plays by two dozen playwrights and includes production materials as well as play scripts.