HILLSBORO, ORE.: Today, May 5, is the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (#MMIW #MMIR). As part of national efforts led by the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center to bring attention to the crisis of violence facing Indigenous people, the Native Theater Project (NTP) is amplifying theatre work that sheds light on it.
NTP awarded four cash prizes of $250 to playwrights with new plays addressing MMIR: Marci Rendon, Carolyn Dunn, Isabella Madrigal, and Honokee Dunn. NTP will also develop I is For Invisible by DeLanna Studi over the coming year with Advance Gender Equity in the Arts (AGE) and Bag&Baggage Productions (B&B), culminating in a public presentation at Bag&Baggage’s The Vault Theater on next year’s National Day of Awareness for MMIR. The play is about a family pulling together to find a missing loved one when the authorities refuse to help.
“I have loved this play from the moment I read it,” said AGE program director Andréa Morales in a statement. “DeLanna has the superpower of writing about incredibly difficult subject matter with both empathy and humor. She tackles MMIW with a story that is both relatable to the lived experience of Native people, and accessible to the general public. This play will make you laugh, cry, but most importantly, make you think. It inspired me to look closely at the ramifications of MMIW and to raise consciousness in my own community and beyond. Being able to partner with NTP on this project will allow me to do so, and for that I feel so honored.”
The underlying causes of the disproportionate rates of murder and violence in Native communities are complex. In some communities, the murder rate of Native women is 10 times the national average, according to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. In 2021, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland began the Missing and Murdered Unit, to improve reporting and better coordinate federal and state law enforcement efforts, and to address the fact that of 5,712 missing Native women and girls in the U.S. in 2017, only 116 were logged into the Department of Justice’s missing person database (according to the Urban Indian Health Institute).
A direct cause is the man camps that bring in temporary workers to extract resources like oil, gas, and now lithium. When the Bakken pipeline began, crime rates rose 82 percent. Jurisdictional issues create law enforcement loopholes that do not hold accountable non-Native perpetrators of violence against Native people.
With the awards, Native Theater Project recognized a range of Native voices speaking on these issues. “One of the things I love about this group is that it’s multi-generational, celebrating longtime genius writers like Marci Rendon and Carolyn Dunn, and also reflects the promising young voices writing today,” Native Theater Project creative director Jeanette Harrison said in a statement. “In my work with Native youth, almost two-thirds of them choose to write about MMIR. This topic is so front of mind for our youth. Our kids need us to address this issue, so that they can thrive.”
DeLanna Studi, who is writing I is for Invisible through the project, is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. An award-winning actor, playwright, and current artistic director of Native Voices in Los Angeles, her one-woman show And So We Walked toured across the United States, including a stop at Portland Center Stage. She is currently appearing at Geva Theatre in New York in Pure Native by Vickie Ramirez.
Marci R. Rendon received the award for Say Their Names. A citizen of the White Earth Nation, she is a published author whose work spans genres, including poetry, drama, and the award-winning Cash Blackbear murder mystery series. Her plays have received readings at White Earth Nation's Heart/Health Conference, Out of Hand Theater, the History Theatre, and the Jungle Theater. She was named by Oprah in her 2020 List of Native American authors to read.
Isabella Madrigal was recognized for Menil and Her Heart, which she first wrote when she was 16 and for which she received Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP)’s Young Native Playwright Award in 2020. Madrigal is an enrolled member of the Cahuilla Band of Indians and is of Turtle Mountain Ojibwe descent. A playwright, actress, and screenwriter, her artistry is invested in the ways Indigenous cultural knowledge systems, artistic expressions, and oral tradition practices are crucial to the health and well-being of Indigenous people.
Honokee Dunn (they/them)’s play Tourniquet received YIPAP’s award in 2025. Dunn is an enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and also claims Mvskoke Creek, Cherokee, Seminole, Tunica-Biloxi, and Creole ancestry. The Two-Spirit artist has been in works such as Round Dance by Arigon Starr, Diné Nishłį by Blossom Johnson, and Chat Rats by Mary Sue Price. They have also had their own work produced, including Who You Callin’ Stoic? with Native Voices at the Autry’s 14th Annual Short Play Festival and Stoic Indian, a ten-minute play.
Carolyn M. Dunn was awarded for her one-act play How We Go Missing. A Louisiana Acadian Creole, she is a non-enrolled Freedman tribal descendant of three Oklahoma-based tribes and a Tunica/Choctaw-Biloxi and Atakapas-Ishak descendant. She is a poet and playwright with works about family, grief, and resilience. Books include Outfoxing Coyote, Coyote Speaks, and more. Her plays The Frybread Queen, Soledad, and Three Sisters have been developed and staged at Native Voices at the Autry.
In addition to these writers, Harrison curated a list of 15 recommended plays that address #MMIR on the New Play Exchange. “My hope,” Harrison said in a statement, “is that other theatres across the country will also develop and produce these plays, and we can inspire change.”
A resident program of Bag&Baggage, Native Theater Project (NTP) develops and collaboratively produces plays by Native playwrights. NTP partners with tribal nations, community organizations, and other theaters to offer career development, leadership programs, and performing arts education programs. Bag&Baggage Productions (B&B) is a social impact theatre company that employs artistic expression to elicit cultural connections and to unify the community through meaningful engagement and transformative learning opportunities. Advance Gender Equity in the Arts (AGE) is a social justice and arts service organization working to transform the American theatre from its roots in white patriarchy. Its mission is to invest in theatremakers who have historically been denied opportunities because of gender, race, or age.
Meanwhile, across Canada, Indigenous people and their allies are gathering to mark the 15th Red Dress Day, a national day of awareness and remembrance for the hundreds of Indigenous women and girls who are missing or have been murdered. Inspired by Métis artist Jaime Black's REDress project, which features red dresses hanging in public spaces as a visual reminder of the lives lost, this year marks a significant milestone.
Since 2010, communities have engaged in this project, hanging red dresses, creating artwork, and participating in marches to remember loved ones and call those who are missing back home. According to the Government of Canada, 63 percent of Indigenous women have experienced physical or sexual assault in their lifetime. Statistics Canada reported in 2023 that Indigenous women and girls are six times more likely to be murdered than other groups of people in Canada.
The federal government launched the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) in 2016, which concluded with a report in 2019 that made 231 calls to action and found evidence of genocide against Indigenous peoples in Canada. On this day, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) and non-profit Justice for Girls will announce developments surrounding the deaths of Tatyanna Harrison, Chelsea Poorman, and Noelle O'Soup, whose bodies were found in Metro Vancouver in 2022.
As communities across Canada engage in various events to honor and raise awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, the message remains clear: the fight for justice and recognition continues, and the stories of those lost must not be forgotten.
