ARC SPRING 2023 ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
Theater as a Site of Public History:
Lecture with Playwright Dillon Chitto
in conversation with Laurie Arnold
with Beth Piatote as interlocutor
Reflection of the event by our very own Communications Assistant Eva Whitney can be found here!
Presented by the Arts Research Center with co-sponsorship from the Departments of English, Ethnic Studies, History, and Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies, the Center for Race & Gender, Native American Student Development, and AlterTheater Ensemble.
Award winning playwright Dillon Chitto will be ARC’s visiting Artist-in-Residence for spring 2023. His February 6 – 9 visit to Berkeley coincides with the world premiere of his first play, Pueblo Revolt. Dillon Chitto is a Mississippi Choctaw and Pueblo playwright originally from Santa Fe, NM, currently living in Chicago, IL. He is the Literary Manager for BoHo Theatre and has worked creatively with Native Voices at the Autry, the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, as well as Global Voices Theatre. Dillon was awarded Sundance Institute’s Uprise Grant in 2022, and Theatre Bay Area’s Rella Lossy award for best new script.
On Monday, February 6th at 1pm, Chitto will be joined by Laurie Arnold (Gonzaga University) for a lecture, Theater as a Site of Public History. The lecture will be held inside the play set at the Arts Research Center. Laurie Arnold is an enrolled citizen of the Sinixt Band of the Colville Confederated Tribes. She is Associate Professor of History, Director of Native American Studies, and the Robert K. and Ann J. Powers Chair of the Humanities at Gonzaga University. In 2019-20 she held the Frederick W. Beinecke Senior Research Fellowship at Yale University and an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. Her current research considers how contemporary Native American playwrights are using theatre to tell Native narratives of the past and present.
In addition to the lecture, Chitto will spend time engaging with students at the Native Community Center, hosted by the Native American Student Development Program. On Tuesday, Chitto will visit classes in the Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies Dept. ARC is providing free student tickets to the play to several classes in the TDPS, English, Ethnic Studies, and History Departments.
Pueblo Revolt, by Dillon Chitto
explores the Pueblo Uprising through the eyes of a gay Pueblo teen, Feem, and his older brother, Ba’homa. Hilarious and poignant, the play weaves together history and Indigifuturism to examine queerness, family, religion, and survival. Pueblo Revolt is produced by AlterTheater, and will be staged inside ARC from Feb 2 -12.
More info & tickets here!
BIOS
Dillon Chitto is Native American from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and the Pueblos of Laguna and Isleta. Very much a product of his environment he grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he learned the importance of art, culture, and traditions from his family and members of his community. In his playwriting, he connects these ideas using storytelling techniques learned throughout his life. Dillon is presently in Chicago, Illinois and is currently a company member of BoHo Theatre where he is the Literary Manager. His first play Bingo Hall, developed by Native Voices at The Autry and presented during their 2017 Festival of New Plays, was given a world premiere at Native Voices in March 2018 in Los Angeles. He was selected as Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program’s 2017 winning playwright. Bingo Hall had a reading presented by the Global Voices theatre project as part of 2019 Origins Festival of First Nations at the British Library in London. He was also featured in the 2019 Adaptation Festival at Theater Above the Law in Chicago, Illinois. Dillon was also awarded Sundance Institute’s Uprise Grant in 2022, and Theatre Bay Area’s Rella Lossy award for best new script.
Laurie Arnold is an enrolled citizen of the Sinixt Band of the Colville Confederated Tribes. She is Associate Professor of History, Director of Native American Studies, and the Robert K. and Ann J. Powers Chair of the Humanities at Gonzaga University. In 2019-20 she held the Frederick W. Beinecke Senior Research Fellowship at Yale University and an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. Her first book, Bartering with the Bones of Their Dead: The Colville Confederated Tribes and Termination, was published by the University of Washington Press. Her scholarship includes Colville author Mourning Dove, the Indigenous Columbia Plateau, Indian gaming, and her current research considers how contemporary Native American playwrights are using theatre to tell Native narratives of the past and present.
Her publications have appeared in Time Magazine and in scholarly journals including Montana: The Magazine of Western History, the Western Historical Quarterly, and The Public Historian. She is a publicly engaged scholar and has collaborated on projects with the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, the High Desert Museum, the History Colorado Center, and the National Council on Public History. She holds a PhD in History from Arizona State University and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Oregon State University.
