This past year, the country rallied behind the Sioux tribes at Standing Rock to block the development of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The development would have driven pipelines right through the reservation. Thankfully, on Dec 4th, the project was temporarily halted. Unfortunately as of today(1/24/17), President Trump signed an executive action to force ahead with the pipeline.
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I think this is a very important article. By failing to tell diverse stories through theater, we fail to capture the power of what theater could do, and unnecessarily limit ourselves. Native American history and culture has been ignored and disrespected by the United States since before its founding (quite frankly, ignored and disrespected are a severe understatement). As a society we fail to acknowledge the problems that face Native Americans to this day because of the displacement, genocide, and continued mistreatment inflicted on them by our government. This has to change. Part of changing this comes from our society gaining a better understanding of Native American history and culture. Though saying that increased Native American representation in theater will solve this is over simplifying the problem, I do think it is a good start to try to encourage our culture to respect Native Americans rather than continuing to more or less ignore their stories.
Recently there has been a lot of controversy within the entertainment industry when it comes to terms with diversity and representation in casting as well as in content matter. However, I rarely see or hear anything supporting or even relating in any way to the Native American community. While there have been many forward steps taken towards progression with shows like Hamilton and the upcoming awareness for colorblind casting, there isn't any point if we are going to exclude an entire community. The issue being presented that not enough people know about Native American culture to then bother with making and producing an entire production based around it could be addressed by utilizing the very fact that in theatre, we are teaching audiences and telling people stories, and for this case it would help to create exposure in representation for the members of the Native American community. By ignoring an entire culture, we are inherently disrespecting a community of people with their own stories that enrich history, one that should be seen and heard by an audience.
I have always seen theatre as a way to into the stories of people that we have never seen and sometimes don't understand. Especially in today's state, theatre can act as a way to educate others on the circumstances of others who have lived different lives and thus accepted different values then them. I agree with the author of this article, I believe that everyone's stories have a place in the theatre because everyone's stories deserve the chance to be told in a way that only live theatre can tell a story. It was only recently that I started thinking about my own race, and how we are represented in theatre. Overall, I realized that even if differing stories were told, they were told be a mainly white population of actors. While this might be a discussion for another article, I think that it is important to note that many races are having their stories told today, but Native American Stories are still left out. Maybe its because of their culture and how hard it might be for struggling reservations to have access to the arts, but even if that's the case, we must change it. Everyone's story needs to be told.
I love how this article, instead of just pushing and stating repeatedly what needs to happen, actually talks about a real and plausible solution and the root of the problem. I also think that the analysis of the origin of why a Native American production hasn't made it to Broadway is completely accurate. Being from Arizona, a large portion of which is dedicated to Native American reservations, having large pats of that culture everywhere where I grew up, and practically being raised by a woman who is half-Cherokee until 3rd grade, I might know more than most, but I am still oblivious to most of Native American history and culture. I think education on these topics could help people see that Native Americans are one more group that has been oppressed and deserves to express who they are and where they have come from, just as much as everyone else onstage.
I really hope that this is something that will begin to happen soon. There are so many diverse groups that need to be recognized on Broadway, and I think this is the perfect time to start doing this for this group. Since there has been a large amount of concerns with the pipelines, people have begun to notice how much of an issue it truly is. Yet, there is still a large majority of people who have not realized that yet. Broadway is place where ideas and beliefs can be challenge, so I think it would be a wonderful step forward to represent these people onstage. I do think it is important to do it from their perspective though, and not the perspective of America in the past or present. If this were to be done, it would not be too helpful since most depictions of their culture right now is based off of what is taught in school. There has been major progress in acceptance over the past couple of years, and it is important not to lose it over one man signing a document. Now is the perfect time to address the issue on Broadway.
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