This second release of North American Indian Drama includes more than 170 plays by 33 playwrights. Included in this release are many important names in contemporary theatre, such as Diane Glancy, Hanay Geiogamah, E. Donald Two-Rivers, Drew Hayden Taylor, LeAnne Howe, Tomson Highway, Shirley Cheechoo, Yvette Nolan, Marie Clements, Bruce King, Laura Shamas, and William S. Yellow Robe.  In addition, this release includes five issues of the Native Playwrights’ Newsletter, published by Dr. Paul Rathbun.  The Native Playwrights’ Newsletter is quite simply the only resource of its kind, documenting contemporary Indian Drama through original essays, reviews, interviews, photographs, production histories, articles, and in some cases, even the plays themselves. 

More than half of the plays included here are previously unpublished, almost all are hard to find, and they represent a wealth of dramatic material that is often overlooked or inaccessible.  Together, these plays demonstrate Native theater’s diversity of tribal traditions and communities, approaches to drama, and individual experiences, but also reflect the commonality of the artistic drive of Native writers to give public voice to their own representations of themselves and their culture.  The collection represents groups across the United States and Canada, including Cherokee, Métis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, and others.

The collection begins in the early 1930s with the work of Lynn Riggs, the first produced Native American playwright, and his seminal work The Cherokee Night.  It then progresses through the twentieth century with works produced by the Native American Theatre Ensemble (NATE) and other innovative American Indian theater companies of the 1970s and 1980s, including Spiderwoman Theater, the longest continually running professional Native and women’s theater group in the United States.  The collection will also include a large collection of contemporary plays produced by such companies as Toronto’s Native Earth Performing Arts, Seattle’s Red Eagle Soaring, and New York’s Coatlicue Theater Company.  In addition to a number of plays of historical significance, such as the Federal Theatre Project productions of Lynn Riggs, the plays will be of particular interest to students and scholars of popular culture and American history. 

North American Indian Drama will include sections devoted to regional theatre and contemporary theatre. The aim is to have more than a hundred plays that have never been published before. The collection will contain not only the texts themselves, but also playbills, posters, and other ephemera. As with Alexander Street’s other drama databases, significant information is included about productions, performances, theatrical companies, and other details.

When complete, North American Indian Drama will contain the full text of 250 plays written from the early 1900s to the present by more than 50 playwrights. Many of the works are rare, hard-to-find, or out of print.  Nearly a quarter of the collection will consist of previously unpublished plays.

We consulted several bibliographies in creating the database, and content selection is under the direction of our editors and advisors. The collection’s unpublished portion has evolved mostly under the direction of the playwrights themselves.

It is our goal to have no errors in this database. Below are known errors in this release of the database which will be rectified in the next release.

This release of the database includes 172 plays by 33 playwrights.

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Appendix A

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• The Site is XXXXX
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North American Indian Drama was made possible through the hard work of the following individuals:

Our goal is to create a unique archive of North American Indian Drama according to the editorial criteria expressed above. We welcome contributions from organizations and individuals, especially if you have materials that are unpublished or of unique interest. Submitting materials to our editors is easy and without obligation on your part. If you have collections of substantial value, we may be able to pay you a royalty in return for the rights to use them.

• To submit materials for inclusion in North American Indian Drama, please email the Editor at Editor@AlexanderStreet.com or mail them to Alexander Street Press, 3212 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22314.
   
• If you are a commercial publisher who would like to discuss licensing materials for inclusion in the database, please contact the Editor at Editor@AlexanderStreet.com or 1-800-889-5937 or 1-703-212-8522.
   
• To report factual errors or to suggest improvements, please email us at Editor@AlexanderStreet.com. Please include the author, the document, and the page number. Please also include your email address, so that we can let you know the status of your correction.

Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that plays and materials in this database are fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and all other countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the British Commonwealth and Canada), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention, and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations.  All rights, including but not limited to professional, amateur, motion pictures, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, including information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved.

Plays from this collection may not be performed without securing permission from the appropriate copyright holders, as listed in the bibliographic display for each play.  Particular emphasis is laid upon the question of readings, permission for which must be secured in writing.  All production rights reserved.  Under no circumstances may any electronic form (CD-ROM, online, or other local storage medium) be used to create production copies of the play. 

Specific performance rights information for each play can be found in the bibliographic detail display for that play.  Alexander Street Press makes no guarantee that this information is correct.  For plays where no performance rights information is listed Alexander Street Press does not warrant that no performance rights exist. 

We are eager to hear from any rights owners who are not properly identified so that appropriate information may be provided in the future. Please e-mail the editor at the address below.

Texts produced for North American Indian Drama are considered research materials and receive the same level of stewardship as books, paper documents, and photographs. Once complete, copies of the database will be given to all purchasing institutions, so ensuring that the materials are available to subsequent generations.

MARC records are available for this collection.

Each play has its own MARC record to allow linking from the OPAC to the individual item.
This will enable patrons to link directly from a publish access catalog to all documents pertaining to that author.
To retrieve these records, please see our site at http://marc.alexanderstreet.com and select the records for North American Indian Drama.