World Voices: VICKIE RAMIREZ, Tuscarora / CANADA

Join us for a World Voices reading of Yuchewahkenh (Bitter) by Vickie Ramirez of the Tuscarora Nation in Canada/US, an Iroquoian-speaking First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands in Canada and the United States. Directed by Opalanietet Ryan Pierce/Eagle Project. Followed by a talk with Ramirez and Opalanietet, moderated by Frank Hentschker.

About the Play:

When Myra's sister Ellie goes missing after a fight with her unreliable boyfriend, Myra investigates and encounters a wall of bigotry, misogyny, and generational trauma as she tries to find her sister. Enter Bad Mind, the trickster spirit who forces Myra to confront her own biases and inherited trauma as she fights to uncover what happened to Ellie.

Vickie Ramirez (Tuscarora) is a playwright, director, and co-founder of the Chukalokoi Native Theater Ensemble alongside Cochise Anderson, Irene Bedard, and Steve Elm. In 2009, she became the first Indigenous playwright to join the Emerging Writers Group at New York's Public Theater. Ramirez is part of the Inaugural Indigenous Writers' Collective at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a resident at New Dramatists through 2027.

Her works have been showcased at renowned venues such as The Public Theater, Native Voices at the Autry, and Pershing Square Signature Center. She received honorable mentions from Kilroy's for Standoff at Hwy #37 in 2015 and Pure Native in 2019. Pure Native was also a semi-finalist at The Eugene O'Neill Center's National Playwrights Conference in 2018 and the Bay Area's Playwrights Conference in 2019. Pure Native recently made its East Coast Premiere next at Geva Theater in Rochester.

Ramirez's current commissions include The Ally Project for Seattle Rep and Six Nations: One Fire for the Inaugural Democracy Cycle Commission for PacNYC. In 2020, she won the NNPN's Smith Prize for Political Theater for Yuchewahkénh (Bitter), and she is co-producing Yuchewahkénh in Spring 2026 with Pia Wilson and Mona Mansour as part of Pool Plays 4.0.

As an educator, Ramirez played a crucial role in developing Alter Theater’s Arts Learning Project and has guest lectured at the University of Rochester. She has also directed for the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Project, The American Indian Community House at Carnegie Hall, and Amerinda at Theater For A New City.

Partnering with TDEP Productions, Ramirez wrote and directed Glen Reige 20 WP, which will be making it's broadcast debut on PBS in 2026. She is currently adapting Standoff at Hwy#37 into a feature film and Pure Native as a TV series with TDEP. Vickie also consulted on Amazon's Outer Range.

Her work appears in various publications, including Monologues for Actors of Color: Women, Monologues for Actors of Color: Men, Contemporary Plays by Women of Color, TRW's Short Plays, and Broadway Publishing's Smoke.

Vickie is a member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN USA.

Ryan Victor Pierce, or "Opalanietet," is a member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal nation of New Jersey.  Upon graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Opalanietet has performed in workshops and productions at such renown New York theatrical institutions as New Dramatists, LaMaMa E.T.C. and New York City Opera at Lincoln Center.  In November of 2020, Opalanietet made history by giving the first-ever Lenape Land Acknowledgement at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. In July of 2021, Opalanietet made history again by delivering the opening performance at Lincoln Center after the pandemic with GALLIM’s performance installation, You Are Here.

In 2012, Opalanietet founded Eagle Project, a theater company dedicated to exploring the American identity through the performing arts and our Native American heritage, http://www.eagleprojectarts.org.  Through his leadership, Eagle Project has collaborated with and performed at Theatre Row, the Public Theater, and Ashtar Theater in Palestine.  In April of 2020, Eagle Project collaborated with the American Indian Community House of New York City and First Nations Theatre Guild to create Native Theatre Thursdays, a virtual reading series of new Native work. In 2026 Opalanietet and EAGLE PROJECT participates in New York's inaugural DOWN TO EARTH FESTIVAL.

Opalanietet is currently studying for his doctorate in Theatre & Performance Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, and has been a teacher of Contemporary Indigenous Theatre & Performance at The New School in New York City and SUNY Purchase. His article, “The Natural Landscape of Native Puppetry,” has just been published by the journal, Puppetry International Research (PIR). Opalanietet is the founder and editor INDIGENOUS STAGES, an open access academic journal housed at the Segal Theatre Center.