AND SO WE WALKED Makes North Carolina Debut

Triad Stage, a professional, not-for-profit, regional theater in Greensboro, NC, will stage the North Carolina debut of a new one-woman play that traces the path of a young Cherokee woman's great-great grandparents who were forced to relocate from their homelands in the 1830s along the Trail of Tears. Created and performed by DeLanna Studi (Cherokee Nation) and produced and directed by Corey Madden, AND SO WE WALKED: An Artist's Journey Along the Trail of Tears, previews from April 19-21, opens on April 22, and runs through April 30 at the Hanesbrands Theatre, 209 Spruce Street North in Winston-Salem, NC. For tickets, visit TriadStage.org or call (336) 272-0160.

Produced in collaboration the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, the project was developed with individuals and institutions within the Eastern Band of Cherokee and Cherokee Nation, with support from Native Voices Theatre, American Indian Center, Process Series at UNC-Chapel Hill and other influential organizations. For full show credits, visit AndSoWeWalked.com.

Studi, Cherokee artist and winner of the 2016 Butcher Scholar Award from The Autry Museum of the American West, has written an inspiring story about a contemporary Cherokee woman and her father who embark on a 900-mile journey along the Trail of Tears to understand her own identity and the conflicts of her nation. AND SO WE WALKED is a powerful, multi-faceted, dramatic memoir that draws on interviews, historical research, and the artist's personal experience to convey the complexities and conflicts with which the Cherokee wrestle. Studi deftly plays multiple characters in the show.

Studi most recently starred in ASTORIA: PART ONE at Portland Center Stage and Indiana Repertory Theatre's FINDING HOME: INDIANA AT 200. Her Off-Broadway debut in INFORMED CONSENT, at the Duke Theater on 42nd Street, was a New York Times Critics' Pick, which described her performance as "moving gravity." She was a company member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for two seasons, where she was one of only 10 Native people to have done so! She performed in the first national Broadway tour of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY. She has won awards for her performances in Hallmark/ABC's DREAMKEEPER and Chris Eyre's EDGE OF AMERICA. DeLanna tours in the Encompass Compassion Play KICK, a one-person show by Peter Howard, which explores the power of images, stereotypes, and Native American mascots. She recently starred in the short film BLESSED and can be seen in ABC's GENERAL HOSPITAL, Showtime's SHAMELESS and SyFy's ZNATION. She is the current chair of the SAG-AFTRA Native Americans Committee.

Madden has been the creator, director and/or producer of more than 300 site-specific, interdisciplinary and new works across the country and in Europe. Recent original works premiered by her company, L'Atelier Arts, include TALES OF THE OLD WEST presented at The Autry, SOL PATH and RAIN AFTER ASH commissioned by Pasadena's AxS Festival, and Day for Night presented during Santa Monica's 2011 GLOW Festival and restaged for the 2012 Transatlantyk Film and Music Festival. Madden is currently Executive Director of The Kenan Institute for the Arts at the UNC School of the Arts and has been Associate Artistic Director of the Center Theatre/Mark Taper Forum, Producing Director of Performing for Los Angeles Youth, Director of Artist Programs for the Pasadena Arts Council, and on the Artistic Staff for The Actors Theatre of Louisville and its Humana Festival of New American Plays.

To post a comment, you must register and login.