Artist Bios

MARIE CLEMENTS (Metis/Dene) is an award-winning performer, playwright, director, screenwriter, producer, and founding artistic director of urban ink productions and Fathom Labs Highway. Her twelve plays, including Copper Thunderbird, Burning Vision, and The Unnatural and Accidental Women, have been presented on some of the most prestigious stages for Canadian and international work including the Festival de Theatre des Ameriques (Urban Tattoo 2001, Burning Vision 2003) in Montreal, the National Arts Centre and The Magnetic North Festival (Burning Vision 2003, Copper Thunderbird 2007) in Ottawa. Her work has garnered numerous awards and publications including the 2004 Canada-Japan Literary Award and a shortlisted nomination for the 2003 Governor General's Literary Award.

ERIC GANSWORTH (Onondaga) is a professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. His books include Mending Skins (PEN Oakland Award), and A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function (National Book Critics Circle's "Good Reads" List). His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Boston Review, Shenandoah, Cold Mountain Review, Poetry International, New York Quarterly, Yellow Medicine Review, American Indian Quarterly, Stone Canoe, UCLA American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Many Mountains Moving, and Studies in American Indian Literature, among other journals.

ALANIS KING (Odawa Nation). Her playwriting credits include: Bye Bye Beneshe, Song of Hiawatha: An Anishnaabec Adaptation, Order of Good Cheer, Gegwah, Lovechild, Artshow, Heartdwellers, Manitoulin Incident, Tommy Prince Story, When Jesus Met Nanabush, Storyteller and Step by Step. King was Playwright in Residence at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto from 2005 to 2007 and at Nightwood Theatre. She was a past Artistic Director of her home theatre company - Debajehmujig Theatre Group and Native Earth Performing Arts. She has also produced, toured, directed and developed numerous plays on many First Nation communities; a highlight was Lupi the Great White Wolf for the children's tour to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

VICTORIA NALANI KNEUBUHL (Native Hawaiian/Samoan) is a Honolulu playwright and author. Her many plays have been performed in Hawai`i and the continental United States and have toured to Britain, Asia, and the Pacific. An anthology of her work, Hawai`i Nei: Island Plays, is available from the University of Hawai`i Press. Ms. Kneubuhl's first mystery novel Murder Casts a Shadow, was recently published by the University of Hawaii Press. She is currently the writer and co-producer for the television series Biography Hawaii. In 1994, she was the recipient of the prestigious Hawai`i Award for Literature and in 2006 received the Eliot Cades Award for Literature.

MARTHA REDBONE (Choctaw/Shawnee/Cherokee/Blackfeet) is a leading voice in both soul and contemporary Native music. She has been recognized with awards for both of her albums - Skintalk and Home of the Brave, including the 2006 Independent Music Awards Best R&B album; Best Debut Artist at the 2002 Native American Music Awards; and two consecutive Indian Summer Music Awards for Best R&B Album of 2004 and 2005. Also in 2005, Martha received the National HIV/Aids Partnership Red Ribbon Award at the UN for her community work. Currently the Brooklyn native and daughter of a Choctaw/Shawnee/Cherokee/Blackfeet mother and African-American father is working on her third album.

LAURA SHAMAS (Chickasaw) Laura Shamas's plays have been produced by Golden Thread Productions, Victory Theater (L.A.), Philadelphia Theater Company, Denver Center Theater Company, Walnut Street Theater, Studio Arena, West Coast Ensemble and The Glines (NYC), among others. Her work has been read/developed/presented at many theaters, including Native Voices at the Autry (L.A., Festival of New Plays, ‘08); Native Earth Performing Arts (Toronto, "Weesageechak Learns to Dance XX," '07); "Playwrights Week at the Lark" (New York, ‘07); Soho Theatre (London, '06 & ‘07); Williamstown Theatre Festival (Guest Artist ‘06); The Old Globe; The Geva Theater; and The Utah Shakespearean Festival. Shamas has several published plays, including Re-Sourcing, Moliere In Love, Pistachio Stories, Up To Date, Lady-Like, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Portrait of a Nude, and The Other Shakespeare. She has been honored with a number of playwriting awards, including the 2008 Garrard Best Play Award from the Five Civilized Tribes Museum for her show Talking Leaves, a Fringe First Award for Outstanding New Drama (Edinburgh), a Drama-Logue Award, and a 2006-2007 Aurand Harris Fellowship from the Children's Theater Foundation of America.

LEIGH SILVERMAN (Director) Broadway: Lisa Kron's Well. Off-Broadway credits include: Liz Flahive's From Up Here (world premiere, Manhattan Theatre Club; Drama Desk Nomination); David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face (world premiere, co-production Center Theatre Group/The Public Theater); Beebo Brinker Chronicles (world premiere, Hourglass Group and 37 Arts); Brooke Berman's Hunting and Gathering (world premiere, Primary Stages); Well (world premiere, The Public Theater, The Huntington Theater and ACT, San Francisco); Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Second Stage Theatre); Tanya Barfield's Blue Door (Playwrights Horizons and Seattle Repertory Theater); The Five Lesbian Brothers' Oedipus At Palm Springs (world premiere, New York Theatre Workshop); Eve Ensler's The Treatment (world premiere, The Culture Project); Neena Beber's Jump/Cut (world premiere, Woolly Mammoth Theatre/Theater J and Women's Project); and Big Times (world premiere, W.E.T.). West End: Wit (Vaudeville Theatre). Other recent regional productions include: Tanya Barfield's Of Equal Measure (world premiere, Center Theatre Group); Bad Dates (Cleveland Playhouse) and How I Learned to Drive (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Upcoming projects include the new musical Coraline with music by Stephin Merritt and book by David Greenspan at MCC and Five Questions by Lisa Kron.