Elizabeth Frances and Rainbow Dickerson in the New York premiere production of Manahatta, written by Mary Kathryn Nagle and directed by Laurie Woolery, at the Public Theater.
Photographer: Joan MarcusIn Manahatta, 17th Century Fur Trade and 2008 Financial Crisis Share the Stage
The play by Mary Kathryn Nagle, now running at the Public Theater, connects the early economic exploitation of the Lenape people and the bank crashes of 2008.
For Mary Kathryn Nagle—a member of the Cherokee Nation who advocates for Indigenous rights and tribal sovereignty—theater and law have always been complementary. “Native people in the United States, we’re still not seen as fully human,” she said in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “I think we have to re-humanize ourselves in arts and entertainment and culture.”
While in law school at Tulane University, Nagle wrote a play a year and cajoled fellow students and faculty members to produce and perform them. While clerking for a federal judge at the US District Court for the District of Nebraska, she wrote a play about a 19th century trial that took place there, which established equal rights for Native Americans. Later, the play, Waaxe’s Law, was performed at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.