Native Voices Presents 27th Festival of New Plays

ABOUT THE DIRECTORS

Nailah Unole Dida-nese’ah Harper-Malveaux (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) is a theatre director, producer, and community organizer with a passion for creating, facilitating, and curating artistic engagements that center stories of the global majority, explore intersectional identities, and challenge systems of oppression and complacency. She most recently directed The Light by Loy A. Webb at Shotgun Players and two projects for the American Conservatory Theater’s (A.C.T.) MFA program.

She is a resident artist at Crowded Fire, a 2019–21 SDCF Observer, and a former artistic fellow at A.C.T. and Berkeley Repertory. She graduated with a BA in theatre studies and American studies from Yale University.

Madeline Sayet (Mohegan Tribe) is executive director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP) and co- artistic director of Red Eagle Soaring: Native Youth Theatre. For her work as a director, writer, and performer she has been honored as a Forbes 30 Under 30, TED Fellow, MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow, National Directing Fellow, and Native American 40 Under 40, and is a recipient of the White House Champion of Change Award from President Barack Obama. www.madelinesayet.com Rhiana Yazzie (Diné) is a Steinberg Award–winning playwright, director, filmmaker, and the artistic director of New Native Theatre (Minneapolis/St. Paul). A citizen of the Navajo Nation, she has been a Playwrights’ Center Fellow multiple times (McKnight 2016–17, and Jerome 2006 and 2010). Her newest play is Nancy , a Native bio-perspective on Nancy Reagan. A sequel to Queen Cleopatre and Princess Pocahontas , Nancy was commissioned by OSF and the Public Theater for the American Revolutions cycle. She has just completed her first feature film, A Winter Love , which will premiere at the Wairoa

Maori International Film Festival in New Zealand in June 2021.