AMERICAN INDIAN REPERTORY THEATRE
Creating American Indian Theatre for the 21st Century
The America Indian Repertory Theatre was formed in 2006 as a non-profit American Indian theatre production company with the purpose of providing an American Indian theatre experience for Native and non-Native audiences. The company is dedicated to telling the stories that have come to us from our ancestors and to telling the stories of a vibrant contemporary American Indian culture. The company is a touring company based in Lawrence, Kansas.
The goals of the organization are (1) to offer American Indian communities theatre productions that celebrate the history and culture of the tribes and nations and that address the contemporary cultural and social issues that face the communities, (2) to offer non-Native communities with an American Indian theatre experience that provides an accurate understanding of American Indian history and contemporary culture, (3) to provide a production and workshop venue for American Indian playwrights, and (4) to provide performance experience and training for American Indian theatre artists.
The company was founded by former faculty and students of the Thunderbird Theatre at Haskell Indian Nations University. The founding members of the American Indian Repertory Theatre include personnel with over thirty years presenting American Indian theatre productions across the United States and represented a modern Native American theatre vision working with the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Endowment for the Arts, Project HOOP at the UCLA American Indian Studies Center, the Native American Playwrights Archive at Miami University, the Lied Center of Kansas, the New York Public Theater, and countless academic conferences.
The company operates with cooperative agreements with the Topeka Community Foundation, Topeka, Kansas; and the Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence, Kansas, and Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence Kansas.
We welcome you to participate and help support this exciting addition to our communities.
Artistic Director: Pat Melody
Production Director: Dianne Yeahquo Reyner
Technical Director: Lee Saylor