Marcie Rendon - Plays & Theater Collaborations

Rough Face Girl

Urban Rez

l837 Mille Lacs Treaty

FREE Frybread Telethon

Raving Natives

The Ghost of Manifest Destiny

As the Spiritual World Turns

Ho Ho Ho and a Cuppa Jo

SongCatcher

Bring the Children Home

Outside In, Inside Out

InnerCity Opera

The Trial of Standing Bear

Looks into the Night

Rough Face Girl Invitation

Marcie Rendon is available for poetry readings, writing workshops, and
theater residencies. For more information, please contact her at: MRendon703@aol.com

Plays

Neurotica - Scripted in collaboration with Thunderbird Theatre Students, Haskell Indian College, Lawrence, Kansas, March 2004
Artistic Director Pat Melody - Display the playbill

Predator/Prey - Full production February 2004 at The Playright Center, Minneapolis, MN. Text by Marcie Rendon, script development and staging by Paul Herwig, choreography by Jennifer Ilse - both of Off-Leash Area Theatre, Minneapolis, MN

Sacajawea - Commissioned work with full production spring 2003 at Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre, Fargo, North Dakota

Rough Face Girl – Billed as a Native American Cinderella story, this play is based on a Micmac tribal legend. It is a story about unhealed grief and one young woman's ability to see beauty in the face of fear, loneliness and pain.
When we can see the beauty around us, in each other and ourselves, there is hope for love, togetherness and laughter." Produced in March 2001 at BAPA Imagination Stage, Bethesda, MD. Janet Stanford, Artistic Director. Directed by Rebecca Rice. 1 hr.

Urban Rez – Urban Rez is a work-in-progress, poetic-movement piece exploring native life in the inner-city. As part of Eye of the Storm Theater’s "SEED the Storm" Series, Urban Rez had a staged reading in April 2000, directed by Artistic Director Casey Stangl. 40 min.

l837 Mille Lacs Treaty – This play depicts the urban struggles of people of color today alongside the historical and current treaty issues of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota. Rendon worked as mentor and dramaturg with the students of the Minnesota American Indian AIDs Task Force Summer Native Arts Prevention Program to create this piece. ‘Treaty’ was produced at the Southern Theater, Mpls., MN and at Mille Lacs Cultural Center, Mille Lacs Reservation, MN, in August 1999. Directed by Sharon Day. 1 hr. Copyright and script held by: Minnesota American Indian AIDs Task Force, Sharon Day,
Executive Director, 1540 Franklin Ave., Mpls., MN. 612-870-1723

FREE Frybread Telethon – Just what can you do on stage with a beaded leather thong bikini? Determined to break cultural stereotypes of drums, feathers and flutes, FREE Frybread was collaboratively written by cast and crew as a hilarious evening of song, dance and performance art – complete with commercials from Rez-rider Auto Parts and Nit-Git. Native country’s own Vanna Brown tally’s the pledges. The Rice Girls and BuffyAin’tForFree are featured attractions. Even Elvis Shapeshifter makes an appearance. The audience are members of the telethon studio watching volunteer telephone operators take pledges to FREE Frybread. The show’s music was created by nationally-renowned Mohican composer Brent Michael Davids (Bluebutterfly).
FREE Frybread had an sro production at Bryant Lake Bowl Theater in l999. It was also produced in l999 at the Minneapolis Fringe Festival and as a dinner show for both the AFACS annual banquet and at St. Croix Casino, Wisconsin. A version titled FREE Frybread and Chitlins too… was staged at Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, in 2000 as part of IA’s Black Natives art exhibit. Scripted, produced, and directed by Rendon this is a 1hr. show.

Raving Natives “Theater in the House" Productions are collaborative theater pieces created for ‘site-specific’ locations. Plays are scripted and directed by M. Rendon, and collaboratively written and performed by the creative cast that worked together on FREE Frybread. Shows include:

The Ghost of Manifest Destiny, written & performed by Brent Michael Davids and Eric Keast at Jungle Theater in conjunction with pARTS Gallery’s photography exhibit ‘Silent Witness – Landscapes that have witnessed genocide’. 2002.
5 min.

As the Spiritual World Turns at Patrick’s Cabaret, May 2000. 20 min.

Ho Ho Ho and a Cuppa Jo played at Black Bear Crossing Coffeehouse in Dec. ’99 45 min. an indian love/murder play performed in private homes in Seward and Powderhorn neighborhood, March ‘99 and at Blackbear Crossing Coffeehouse in April ’99 1 hr.

SongCatcher -SongCatcher - Journalist Janice Command has this to say about the play SongCatcher, “The play forwards a Native perspective on the life and work of Frances Densmore, whose early 20th Century recordings of traditional and sacred songs have been part of the tug-of-war between the Smithsonian Institute and tribal members in recent years. SongCatcher delves deep into the controversies that surround anthropology and cultural appropriation. SongCatcher is a complex play in many ways. History, the spirit world, and
contemporary life converge on stage. The plot involves Jack and Chris, a Native couple whose apartment becomes crowded with spirits when Jack innocently, but misguidedly, misuses sacred art and songs. One of those spirits wandering in the apartment is Densmore. The play, commissioned as biography, is undoubtedly a controversial and enlightening perspective on the celebrated musicologist’s work. There will be disagreements as to whether the interpretation demonizes, or merely humanizes, its title character.”

Playwright’s notes: “In this age of multi-culturalism, a much larger question being asked by this play is: From whose perspective is history told? Whose stories get accorded academic credibility? Who determines whose version of history is accurate? How does a history, told from a mono-culturistic point of view shape people’s perceptions, not only of historical times and events but also people’s perceptions of themselves?”

This Native perspective of the life of ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore had a staged reading Nov 10, ‘99 by Red Road Productions, NY at the American Indian Community House Theater’s SkyWoman Festival. Its first full production was at the Great American History Theatre, St. Paul, MN, ‘98. Ron Peluso, Artistic Director. Directed by Casey Stangl. 2 hr.

Bring the Children Home – This is a story of one child’s search for his name. Commissioned by Child’s Play Theatre, Steve Barbario, Aritistic Director, and produced at Pillsbury House Theatre, Oct. ’96. 1 hr.

InnerCity Opera - Collaborative theatre piece for The Great American History Theatre, (song by M. Rendon: A Place in the Sun) St. Paul, l996.

The Trial of Standing Bear is an in progress operatic theater piece with full outline and two completed scenes as of 2002. Book by Marcie Rendon, music by composer Brent Michael Davids. The two completed scenes were presented as a Nautilus Rough-Cuts series January 8 & 9th, 2001under the direction of Ben Krywosz.

Looks into the Night - screenplay written with Valerie RedHorse, story © by Lorraine Norrgard (American Film Institute, l995; Winner of Best Dramatic Short - American Indian Film Festival, l996)