Where We Belong @ Seattle Rep

Sep 9 – Oct 9

Mohegan theatremaker Madeline Sayetwrites and stars in this autobiographical one-woman show about what it means to cross the borders of countries, time, and our identities. In her telling, Sayet rises to prominence directing Shakespeare productions starring Indigenous performers (most notably a production of The Tempest) and soon moves to England to get a doctorate in the works of the Bard. “Somewhere I’m not hated for being me,” she tells us. There, she encountered a country completely unwilling to examine its own history of colonization. As the solo piece jumps around in space and time, Sayet deconstructs cultural genocide, how she can be both Native and love Shakespeare, and what it’s like not growing up with the language of her ancestors—a language that existed in Shakespeare’s time. 

Where We Belong was originally staged at Shakespeare’s Globe in London as part of Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival—the UK’s only large-scale Indigenous multidisciplinary festival—and then fine-tuned at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.

“The initial piece was very specifically navigating my relationship with England,” Sayet said in an interview with Woolly Mammoth. “This current draft has been adjusted, slightly, for American accountability and engagement but also knowing people are ready to hear things now that they weren’t in 2018.” The American production is now on a national tour that includes the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, NYC’s famed Public Theater, and our very own Seattle Rep’s Leo K. Theater.