A gripping journey from the fur trade of the 1600s to the stock trade of today, Mary Kathryn Nagle’s MANAHATTA tells the story of Jane Snake, a brilliant young Native American woman with a Stanford MBA. Jane reconnects with her ancestral homeland, known as Manahatta, when she moves from her home with the Delaware Nation in Anadarko, Oklahoma to New York for a job at a major investment bank just before the financial crisis of 2008. Jane’s struggle to reconcile her new life with the expectations and traditions of the family she left behind is powerfully interwoven with the heartbreaking history of how the Lenape were forced from their land. Both old and new Manahatta converge in a brutal lesson about the dangers of living in a society where there’s no such thing as enough. Written in the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group, Mary Kathryn Nagle's MANAHATTA is a stunning new play about the discovery that the only thing you can truly own is who you are and where you come from. Kate Whoriskey (The Miracle Worker, Ruined) directs.
Pre- and Post-show Events
We are honored to commence the first performance of the play on Thursday, May 15 with an opening prayer in Lenape from the Delaware Tribe's Tribal Operations Manager and former Chief, Curtis Zunigha.
The Public will also host panel discussions following select performances of MANAHATTA. On Sunday, May 18, there will be a post-show panel discussion featuring Spiderwoman Theater entitled Violence-The Next Generation-Ending the Silence: Women's Stories of Healing and Renewal moderated by Murielle Borst Tarrant ( Director of "Safe Harbors"-Indigenous Arts/Theatre Collective at La Mama Theater) and including Muriel Miguel (Artistic Director of Spiderwoman Theater), Gloria Miguel (Co-founder of Spiderwoman Theater) and Donna Couteau (Founder of Leaf Arrow Theater).
On Wednesday, May 21, The Eagle Project will be featured in a post-show panel discussion entitled Stereotypes and Misconceptions of Native Americans in the Arts and Media moderated by Ryan Victor Pierce (Founder and Artistic Director of Eagle Project) and including Kimberly Guerrero (actress in MANAHATTA), Mary Kathryn Nagle (author of MANAHATTA), and Rev. John Norwood (Councilman and Principal Justice of the Tribal Supreme Court).
Please check back soon for details about other ancillary events.