Spiderwoman Theater facts for kids

Spiderwoman Theater is a special group of Indigenous (Native American) women who create amazing performances. They mix traditional Native American art with modern theater styles. The group is named after Spider Grandmother, a wise figure from Hopi mythology. Spiderwoman Theater started in 1976 and is the longest-running Indigenous theater company in the United States.

It began as a group of women, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, in New York City. They were part of the feminist movement of the 1970s. Their shows explored ideas about gender roles and challenged old stereotypes. Today, the main members are three sisters: Muriel Miguel, Gloria Miguel, and Lisa Mayo. This group was the first Native American women's theater troupe to become famous around the world.

History of Spiderwoman Theater

Spiderwoman Theater was created in 1976. It started with a mix of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women. Their early work focused on issues important to women.

Muriel Miguel brought together a diverse group of women, including her two sisters. They came from different backgrounds and had various viewpoints. The group grew out of the women's rights movement of the 1970s. They wanted to show how women were treated in society.

Muriel Miguel and Lois Weaver developed a unique way of creating plays. They used stories about the Hopi goddess Spider Grandmother, who taught people how to weave. Lois Weaver called this special method storyweaving. It combined acting games, the idea of weaving stories together, movement, and personal experiences.

Early Performances and Tours

The group's first show was called Women in Violence. It premiered at Washington Square Methodist Church. The play shared the actors' personal stories about dealing with difficult situations. It mixed serious topics with funny, silly parts. For the show, they used simple lights and a backdrop made from Native American quilts. They took this play on tour across the United States and Europe.

In 1977, they debuted their second play, The Lysistrata Numbah!. This show blended an old Greek play by Aristophanes called Lysistrata with the group members' own stories.

In 1978, the troupe performed in Europe again. In Berlin, their luggage got lost. They had to borrow costumes from another New York group called Hot Peaches. This group was mostly made up of male performers who dressed as women. This led to some interesting reactions within Spiderwoman Theater. At one performance, they met Peggy Shaw, who later joined Spiderwoman.

New Directions and Focus

Around 1981, some members of the original group formed a new troupe called Split Britches. Spiderwoman Theater continued with the three sisters. They began to focus more on Indigenous issues in their plays.

Their play Sun, Moon and Feather was one of their first shows with this new focus. Another play, Winnetou's Snake Oil Show from Wigwam City, made fun of how some Europeans, especially Germans, were fascinated with Native Americans. The play joked about characters from old adventure novels and people who pretended to be Native American. It even included a fake workshop where white people could "become Indians" for a weekend for a lot of money. The group said this play was a way to take back their identity as Indigenous women. After Winnetou's Snake Oil Show, they had so many ideas left that they made another show on the same topic called Reverb-ber-ber-rations.

Recognition and Archives

Recordings of "Women In Violence" (1976) and "Lysistrata Numbah!" (1977) were part of a big art exhibit in Los Angeles in 2007. Also, Muriel Miguel, a founder of Spiderwoman, was featured in a short film about theater groups by people of color.

In 1997, a special collection for Spiderwoman Theater was created. It is called the Native American Women Playwrights Archive (NAWPA). This archive keeps important documents and items related to the theater group. It also holds writings and materials from other Native American women in theater.

Over the years, Spiderwoman Theater has received many awards. In 1997, they were given special honorary degrees from Miami University. In 2005, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian in New York City honored them in an exhibit. In 2010, they received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for Art.

Founders of Spiderwoman Theater

Spiderwoman Theater was founded by three sisters: Muriel Miguel, Gloria Miguel, and Lisa Mayo (whose birth name was Elizabeth Miguel). They have Guna and Rappahannock family backgrounds. They were born and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Their mother and grandmother also grew up in Brooklyn. Their father, a Guna Indian, was born in the San Blas Islands near Panama.

Muriel shared that their father worked hard to support the family. Sometimes, the family would perform dances and shows to earn money. The three sisters felt a bit shy about these performances. They decided they wanted to be part of more professional theater instead of being seen as "cliché spectacles."

Muriel Miguel

Muriel Miguel helped start the Native American Theatre Ensemble. She is a talented choreographer (someone who creates dances), playwright (someone who writes plays), actor, and teacher. She is also a Two-spirit woman. She brought together a diverse group of women, including her sisters, to create Spiderwoman Theater. Muriel also taught theater at Bard College. Before Spiderwoman, she was a founding member of Joseph Chaikin's Open Theater.

Gloria Miguel

Gloria Miguel studied drama at Oberlin College. She has worked a lot in television and theater with Spiderwoman. She has toured with the group in New Zealand, Australia, and Europe. She also advised a Native American AIDS organization in Minnesota on drama. She taught drama at the YMCA in Brooklyn. Gloria is also the mother of Monique Mojica, who is also a playwright and actress.

Lisa Mayo

Lisa Mayo (1924–2013) trained as a mezzo-soprano (a type of singer) at the New York School of Music. Mayo also studied dance and musical comedy. She wrote and performed in more than 20 plays produced by Spiderwoman Theater. She toured with the group in New Zealand, Europe, Australia, China, the United States, and Canada. She also created two one-woman shows called The Pause That Refreshes and My Sister Ate Dirt. Lisa helped the Minnesota Native American AIDS organization by teaching theater skills to young people. She was on the board of directors for The American Indian Community House for many years.

Works by Spiderwoman Theater

Many plays by Spiderwoman Theater have been published in collections of plays. Here are some of them:

• "Sun, Moon, and Feather" in Contemporary Plays by Women of Color: An Anthology.
• "Power Pipes" in Seventh Generation: An Anthology of Native American Plays.
• "Winnetous Snake Oil Show from Wigwam City" in Playwrights of Color.
• "Sun, Moon, and Feather" in Stories of Our Way: An Anthology of American Indian Plays.
• "Reverb-ber-ber-rations" in Staging Coyote's Dream: An Anthology of First Nation Drama in English.
• "Winnetou's Snake Oil Show from Wigwam City" in Keepers of the Morning Star: An Anthology of Native Women's Theater.
• "Winnetous Snake Oil Show from Wigwam City" in Footpaths & Bridges: Voices from the Native American Women Playwrights Archive.
• "Trail of the Otter" in Staging Coyote's Dream: An Anthology of First Nation Drama in English, Volume 2.
• "Hot 'n' Soft" in Two Spirit Acts: Queer Indigenous Performances.

Other plays and projects include:

• "Red Mother," a one-woman play shown at the Museum of the American Indian.
• "Persistence of Memory," a play about how storytelling can help people heal. It also looked at stereotypes about Indigenous art and the challenges Indigenous performers face.
• Women in Violence (1977)
• Lysistrata Numbah! (1977)
• The Trilogy of: My Sister Ate Dirt, Jealousy, and Friday Night (1978)
• Cabaret: An Evening of Disgusting Songs and Pukey Images (1979)
• Oh, What a Life (1980)
• The Fittin' Room (1980)
• Material Witness (2016)
• Fear of Oatmeal (2018): After this play closed, Muriel Miguel received a major award called the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.
• Town of Little Sagas, a podcast series about people in an imaginary Native town. It started in May 2021.
• Misdemeanor Dream (2022)