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Manahatta

  • Mary Kathryn Nagle
  • Full Length Play, Drama, 17th Century, Present Day, New Millennium/21st Century
  • 4M, 3F
  • ISBN: 9780573711251

A stunning play about self-discovery, Mary Kathryn Nagle’s epic drama powerfully interweaves a modern Native American woman’s journey with the heartbreaking history of how the Lenape were forced from their land.

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Drama
  • 105 minutes

  • Time Period: 17th Century, Present Day, New Millennium/21st Century
  • Target Audience: Adult
  • Set Requirements: Unit Set/Multiuple Settings
  • Cautions: Alcohol, Strong Language

  • Performance Group:
  • College Theatre / Student, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups, Professional Theatre
A gripping journey from the fur trade of the 1600s to the stock trade of today, Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Manahatta tells the story of Jane Snake, a brilliant young Native American woman with a Stanford MBA. Jane reconnects with her ancestral homeland, known as Manahatta, when she moves from her home with the Delaware Nation in Anadarko, Oklahoma to New York for a job at a major investment bank just before the financial crisis of 2008. Jane’s struggle to reconcile her new life with the expectations and traditions of the family she left behind is powerfully interwoven with the heartbreaking history of how the Lenape were forced from their land. Both old and new Manahatta converge in a brutal lesson about the dangers of living in a society where there’s no such thing as enough.
REVIEWS:

"Fascinating... provocative and fast-paced."

New Haven Review

"Relevant, ambitious... Mary Kathryn Nagle uses the long lens of history to compare and conflate notions of capital and ownership, language and Indigenous identity, ambition and deracination, money and manipulation."

Datebook

"Sharply written... Manahatta dramatizes two pivotal, and shameful, moments in New York City history, occurring four centuries apart — the Dutch West India Company’s ‘purchase’ of the island of Manhattan from the Lenape Indians (who had no concept of land ownership), and the worldwide financial crisis of 2008."

New York Theater

"Quietly moving... Nagle’s ambitious play has more to offer than just a history lesson... [an] intriguing, thought-provoking, and overall worthwhile play."

Theatermania

"Focused on big themes... the play makes a final resonant point about displacement, kinship and home, powerfully illustrating that all the brute forces of rampant capitalism enacted upon the Lenape in the 17th century are still very much present today."

Daily Beast

"Fascinating... provocative and fast-paced... The play’s nimble overlaps urge us to relive these pivotal moments in our nation’s history with at least some consideration of the Lenape’s perspective."

New Haven Review

Premiere Production: Manahatta premiered off-Broadway at the Public Theater’s Anspacher Theater on November 16, 2023. Directed by Laurie Woolery, the production featured Rainbow Dickerson, Elizabeth Frances, David Kelly, Jeffrey King, Enrico Nassi, Joe Tapper and Sheila Tousey.

Characters

  • Casting: 4M, 3F
  • Casting Attributes: Role(s) for Native American Actor(s)
  • Casting Notes: The cast consists of 7 actors total. Each actor must play the characters as they are outlined in the Cast List. The double casting is not optional.

  • LE-LE-WA'-YOU / JANE
    TOOSH-KI-PA-KWIS-I / DEBRA
    MOTHER / BOBBIE
    SE-KET-TU-MAY-QUA / LUKE
    PETER MINUIT / DICK
    JAKOB / JOE
    JONAS MICHAELIUS / MICHAEL

    • Available Material

    Name Price
    Manahatta Script This is optional. Order Now

     

    		 $24.95

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