Production Design by Hao Bai
Costume Design by Asa Benally
Original Composition & Sound Design by Erik Schilke
Dramaturgy by Vera Starbard
Standby for Madeline Sayet — Emily Preis
Philadelphia Theatre Company presents
the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company production of
Where We Belong
by Madeline Sayet
Directed by Mei Ann Teo
In Association with Folger Shakespeare Library
Content Transparency: This production contains flashing lights, depictions of racism, and discussions of borders, war, loss of language, residential schools, colonial theft of human remains and repatriation.
World Premiere!
April 15 – May 8, 2022
80 minutes, no intermission
In 2015, Mohegan theatre-maker Madeline Sayet travels to England to pursue a PhD in Shakespeare. Madeline finds a country that refuses to acknowledge its ongoing role in colonialism, just as the Brexit vote threatens to further disengage the UK from the wider world. In this intimate and exhilarating solo piece, Madeline echoes a journey to England braved by Native ancestors in the 1700s following treatise betrayals – and forces us to consider what it means to belong in an increasingly globalized world.
The tour of WHERE WE BELONG will receive a developmental production at Baltimore Center Stage (Stephanie Ybarra, Artistic Director) in October 2021.
MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT & DIRECTOR
Madeline Sayet, Playwright, Performer (she/her) is a Mohegan theatre maker who believes the stories we pass down inform our collective possible futures. She serves as an Assistant Professor at Arizona State University with the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS), and is the Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP). She has been honored as a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Hollywood & Entertainment, TED Fellow, MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow, National Directing Fellow, Drama League Director-In-Residence, NCAIED Native American 40 Under 40, and a recipient of The White House Champion of Change Award from President Obama. As a writer her plays include: Where We Belong, Up and Down the River, Antigone Or And Still She Must Rise Up, Daughters of Leda, The Neverland, and The Fish (In Development). Recent directing work includes: Tlingit Christmas Carol (Perseverance Theatre), Midsummer Night’s Dream (South Dakota Shakespeare), Henry IV (Connecticut Repertory Theatre), Whale Song (Perseverance Theatre), As You Like It (Delaware Shakespeare), The Winter’s Tale (Amerinda/HERE Arts), Poppea (Krannert Center, Illinois), The Magic Flute (Glimmerglass), Macbeth (NYC Parks), Miss Lead(59e59). www.madelinesayet.com
Mei Ann Teo, Director (they/she) is a queer immigrant from Singapore making theatre & film at the intersection of artistic/civic/contemplative practice. As a director/devisor/dramaturg, they create across genres, including music theatre, intermedial participatory work, reimagining classics, and documentary theatre. Teo’s work has been in international festivals including Belgium’s Festival de Liege, Edinburgh International Fringe, Beijing International Festival, Singapore Theatre Festival. They helmed Dim Sum Warriors the Musical by Colin Goh and Yen Yen Woo, composed by Pulitzer Prize winner Du Yun for national China twenty-five city tour. They have directed and/or developed new work at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Theatreworks Hartford, Playwrights Realm, Goodman Theatre, Public Theater, Berkeley Rep (Ground Floor), Crowded Fire, History Theatre, Page 73, Musical Theatre Factory, and the National Black Theatre. Recent work includes Jillian Walker’s world premiere SKiNFoLK: An American Show at the Bushwick Starr, Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong at Shakespeare’s Globe and Woolly Mammoth, the North American premiere of Amy Berryman’s Walden at Theatreworks Hartford, and the English US premiere of Stefano Massini’s 7 Minutes at Waterwell. Teo received the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Josephine Abady Award, and is the Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Work at Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
MEET THE CREATIVE TEAM
Hao Bai, Production Designer (she/her) is a multidisciplinary designer in lighting, sound, video projection, and world-building (environment) for live and virtual performances. Hao works with groundbreaking and innovative artists including Charlotte Braithwaite, Abigail DeVille, Mei Ann Teo, Ping Chong, The Talking Band, Mabou Mines, The Wooster Group, The Builders Association, The Hawtplates (Justin Hicks), Pioneers Go East Collective, Loco7, Nia Witherspoon, and New Stage Theatre, etc. Hao’s work has been seen internationally at Asia Culture Center (South Korea), WuZhen Festival (China), in the states at CAC (Cincinnati), Stanford, Jone Hall (Houston), and in New York at The Public Theatre, NYU Skirball, Bushwick Starr, La MaMa, JACK, Performance Space New York, New Stage Theatre, 59E59, A.R.T/New York Theatres, 14 Street Y, BAAD!, Stella Adler, The Performing Garage, The Gallery Players, The Tank, etc. Recent: Virtual: Final Boarding Call (Ma-Yi Theater+WP Theater); Nocturne in 1200s (Ping Chong). Lighting: Waterboy and the Mighty World (Bushwick Starr & The Public Theatre). Projection: Electronic City (NYIT Awards). Sound: Walden (TheatreWorks). Upcoming: Production Design: This Isle is All (Harvard). Lighting/Projection/Sound: Arden (The Flea). Lighting: CHINOISERIE (Ping Chong). Sound: Little Shop of Horrors (St. Louis Rep). https://www.haobaidesign.com/
Asa Benally, Costume Designer (he/him) Citizen of the Navajo and Cherokee Nations. The Rez Sisters (Stratford Festival); Where We Belong (Woolly Mammoth Theater, Baltimore Center Stage); Venus & Adonis, Savitri, CAV + PAG (New Camerata Opera); Grounds (International Contemporary Ensemble); Sweat (Center for Contemporary Opera); Mrs. Warren’s Profession (The Gingold Group); Blues for an Alabama Sky (Keen Company, Drama Desk Nomination); Somewhere Over the Border (Syracuse Stage); Too Heavy For Your Pocket (George Street Playhouse); Skeleton Crew (Westport Country Playhouse); Father Comes Home…(Juilliard); Measure for Measure (The Public Theater Mobile Unit); Cymbeline (Yale Repertory Theater); The Brobot Johnson Experience (The Bushwick Starr); Tricks the Devil Taught Me (Minetta Lane Theatre); Coriolanus, The Seagull (Yale School of Drama); Whale Song (Perseverance Theater); The Crazy Shepherds of Rebellion, Roberto Zucco (Yale Cabaret); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Frog and Peach Theater Company); The Winter’s Tale (HERE Arts Center). Training: M.F.A Yale School of Drama. B.F.A. Parsons School of Design. Online: www.asabenally.com, Instagram: @Asa_Benally_Design.
Erik Schilke, Composer and Sound Designer (he/him) is an ambient electronic artist and music producer. His work draws from the narrative patterns in the natural world around us to both engage with the soundscape of our existence and escape from it at the same time. His debut album Synthesis was recently released on the German label Hymen Records. He has previously scored film projects for acclaimed directors including Fernando Lazzari and Madeline Sayet. Schilke is honored to be working on Where We Belong. https://www.instagram.com/erikschilkemusic/
Grace Chariya, Stage Manager (she/her) is originally from Urbana, Illinois. She has previously worked at Baltimore Center Stage as the Interim Executive Coordinator for part of the 2021-2022 season, served as the Production Assistant on their co-production of Fires in the Mirror with Long Wharf Theatre, and was a Production Assistant and Production Management Apprentice for their 2020-2021 season. Grace has also worked at New York Stage and Film during their summer season as the Production Manager (2022), the Assistant Production Manager (2021), and as a Stage Management Intern (2019). She holds a BFA in Stage Management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Favorite highlights: A Play for the Living in the Time of Extinction; The Garden; The Glorious World of Crowns, Kinks, and Curls (Baltimore Center Stage), Sanctuary City; Annie Salem: An American Tale; Goddess; The Notebook (New York Film and Stage), Jessica Lang Dance’s us/we (Krannert Center for the Performing Arts), eurydice; gorge, idling gorge, just idling, just; An American Daughter; Studio Dance II; Don Giovanni; In The Next Room, or the vibrator play (University of Illinois).
Vera Starbard, Dramaturg (she/her) T’set Kwei yóo x̱at duwasáakw. Vera Starbard áyá ax̱ saayí. Dleit ḵáa x̱’éináx̱ Vera Marlene Bedard yóo x̱at duwasáakw. Teeyneidi naax̱ x̱at sitee. T’akdeintaan yádi. Wooshkeetaan dachx̱án. Dena’ina dachx̱án. Takjik’ ḵwáan áwé uháan. Shaan Seetxʼ x̱at ḵuwdiztee. Dgheyaytnux’ ḵux̱aa.óo. Vera Starbard, T’set Kwei, is a Tlingit and Dena’ina writer and editor. Her mother is of the Teeyeineidi clan and her father is T’akdeintaan. Vera is Playwright-in-Residence at Perseverance Theatre through the Andrew W. Mellon National Playwright Residency Program and Editor of First Alaskans Magazine. Vera is also a writer for the PBS Kids animated children’s program “Molly of Denali,” which won a Peabody Award in 2020. Vera currently lives with her husband Joe Bedard (Inupiaq/Yup’ik/Cree) on the Dena’ina land around Dgheyaytnu – colonially called Anchorage, Alaska. She says gunalchéesh – thank you – to Woolly Mammoth for the opportunity to dramaturg for a meaningful, important work performed on Piscataway land. www.verastarbard.com
Emily Preis, Standby for Madeline Sayet (she/her) is a proud citizen of the Osage Nation as well as a New York City-based maker, performer, and organizer who loves any opportunity to explore the incredible power of storytelling and community sharing. Since receiving her BFA from NYU Tisch’s Experimental Theatre Wing, she has collaborated with her advisor, Mauricio Salgado, to turn her thesis, Performance as an Act for Tribal Sovereignty, into a Theatre Studies course now offered at NYU. For her work as an actress, she was named one of the finalists for Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program’s inaugural Misty Upham Award for Young Native Actors. Select credits include: Lovely Dark & Deep (Broadway Podcast Network), Fairly Traceable (American Bar Association) Tree Tales (Prospect Theater), Your Good Friend Jay Silverheels (YIPAP), Bingo Hall (AICH), When Farah Cries (Borderlight International Theater Festival). Emily hopes to continue to explore ways to build community and challenge harmful narratives through performance.
Broadway & Beyond Theatricals is a theatrical producer and booking agency led by founders Victoria Lang, Ryan Bogner and Tracey McFarland. Upcoming productions: THE KITE RUNNER (Broadway), PARADISE SQUARE (Broadway), CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND (Tour). Broadway tours as agent: PARADISE SQUARE, THE CHER SHOW, MEMPHIS, LEGALLY BLONDE, MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET CHRISTMAS & more. www.bbtheatricals.com
Victoria Lang, Executive Producer (she/her) has enjoyed an award-winning producing career in theatre, television, film, concerts and podcasting. On the cutting edge of the best of Off Broadway theatre she has produced such hits as FOUND: A New Musical, SILENCE! The Musical (Best Musical: Off Broadway Alliance Award, Top 5 Musicals: Time Magazine), SHOUT! The Mod Musical, JOHNNY GUITAR (Best Off-Broadway Musical: Outer Critics Circle Award), MATT & BEN (Top 5 Plays: Time Magazine), and David Friedman’s LISTEN TO MY HEART (Drama Desk Award). Recent Broadway productions include TOOTSIE (Tony nomination), THE CHER SHOW, THE LIGHTNING THIEF, SYLVIA, 1984, and ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE. West End productions include FUNNY GIRL (Olivier Award), BAT BOY and SHOUT! Upcoming Broadway: PARADISE SQUARE, FUNNY GIRL, THE KITE RUNNER, A FACE IN THE CROWD, THE NANNY, LOCH NESS, THE COTTAGE. Television: Live With Regis & Kathie Lee (3 Emmy nominations), Music Specials for PBS and A&E. Film: Macbeth in Manhattan (Showtime), Dark Tides & more. Podcast: FOUND on the Wondery network. Victoria is a Founder and Co-President of Content of Broadway & Beyond Theatricals, a Founder and Co-President of Plus Media & Plus Entertainment and President of Lang Entertainment Group. Victoria attended Emerson College and graduated with a BFA in Theatre Arts Summa Cum Laude from Long Island University. She is a member of the Broadway and Off-Broadway Leagues, the Off Broadway Alliance, BAFTA and the Black Theatre Coalition.
Ryan Bogner, Executive Producer (he/him) is a producer and entertainment entrepreneur and is currently the Co-President of Content for Broadway & Beyond Theatricals (BBT), a full service production company and theatrical booking agency which he founded with partners Victoria Lang and Tracey McFarland. Bogner has produced shows and events on and off Broadway, and with such organizations as The Public Theater, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Ohio Theater, The Zipper Factory, Dixon Place, The New York Musical Festival and The New York International Fringe Festival as well as countless developmental workshops, readings and concerts in both the live and digital spaces. Notable past productions include: THE WOODSMAN, HERE LIES LOVE, THE ORION EXPERIENCE, YEAST NATION, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, TOP HAT, BIG FISH, THE CHER SHOW and CHEERS: LIVE ON STAGE among others. Upcoming: THE KITE RUNNER, CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND. Prior to the founding of BBT, Ryan served as an executive at such production companies as RKO Stage and Stageworks Media, worked in licensing at Theatrical Rights Worldwide and was a founder of booking agency, Off Broadway Touring. Ryan holds a B.F.A. in Musical Theater and Directing from The Boston Conservatory, and an M.F.A. in Theater Management and Producing from Columbia University.