The art of theater is really just storytelling, and the stories that are told from region to region often come from within those communities and offer a shared experience on the stage. Broadway illustrates this with musicals like In the Heights, Allegiance, and The Color Purple—even shows like Noises Off and 42nd Street provide a backstage glimpse of the theater community. Well, today’s guest is here to share her stories as a Native American, and the specific experiences that have helped her foster and create a unique kind of storytelling that values the past as much as the present and future.

Muriel Miguel has been working in the world of experimental theater since the 1960s, when she was an actor in the Open Theater, a pioneering avant-garde ensemble founded by the visionary director Joseph Chaikin. When Spiderwoman Theater was formed in 1975 by Muriel and her two older sisters Lisa and Gloria, she conceived of it as a direct push back against the sexism that she says was plaguing the American Indian Movement at the time.

As part of her creative journey, Muriel developed the art of storyweaving, which is Spiderwoman’s signature Indigenous performance practice. You’ll learn more about this as Muriel intertwines stories and experiences throughout our conversation, sharing important moments that have shaped who she is as a woman, a Native American, and an artist.

Final Five Questions

After our main conversation, Muriel sat down to answer the five final questions. Among several topics, she shares what success has meant to her (a continuation of what she said at the very end of this episode) and what frustrates her most about this industry, particularly in New York City. Read it all on the WINMI Blog.

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Bonus Episode: Muriel recounts the time as a teen when she auditioned as a dancer at Julliard...without ballet slippers.

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Why I’ll Never Make It is an award-winning, Top Theater Podcast hosted by actor and singer Patrick Oliver Jones and is a production of WINMI Media. Background music is by John Bartmann and Blue Dot Sessions is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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