Haskell’s Thunderbird Theatre returns with Native-centered college play

Haskell Indian Nations University is bringing Thunderbird Theatre back into the spotlight with a play that places Native students, Native humor and Native experience at the center of the stage. The production of Wounspe Wanktya - A College Education was rescheduled for Saturday, April 25, and will feature an all-Native cast and crew of Haskell students.

That return carries more weight than a single campus performance. Thunderbird Theatre dates to 1975 and was inactive for a period before a spring 2025 revival that included a staged reading of Shawnee Living History. Haskell describes Thunderbird Theatre as one of its oldest Native theatre organizations, backed by nearly fifty years of sponsorship, and says the program is meant to build self-confidence, leadership and appreciation for performance.

The play itself is rooted in Native storytelling. New Play Exchange describes Wounspe Wanktya - A College Education as a comedy-drama about two Lakota freshmen, Tashina and Tiffany, who sew a sacred dress to help them through college. The work was previously staged by New Native Theatre from March 6 to 24, 2019, and it comes from Lakota playwright Alexandra Hesbrook Ramier, who is from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and studied at Colorado College and Oregon State University.

For Haskell, the revival is as much about identity as it is about arts programming. The university says its theatre program studies Western and world theatre as well as Native theatre, a combination that reflects Haskell’s broader mission as an Indigenous-serving institution founded in 1884. The school serves members of federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native villages and is part of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which includes 37 tribal colleges and universities.

That context makes Thunderbird Theatre matter far beyond one campus stage in Lawrence. For Douglas County audiences, the production offers something rarely available locally: Native-centered college storytelling performed by Native students in a space tied directly to Haskell’s history. It also restores a cultural institution that trains performers, strengthens campus community and gives Native students a place to see their own lives, questions and wit reflected back from the stage.