Rhiana Yazzie is an award-winning playwright, a director, and filmmaker. A Navajo Nation citizen (Ta’neeszahnii dóó Táchii’nii), Yazzie is the Artistic Director of New Native Theatre, which she founded in 2009 in response to the lack of connection and professional opportunities between Twin Cities theaters and the Native community. New Native Theatre is the recipient of the 2023 Headwaters Bush Prize. Yazzie received the 2021 Lanford Wilson Award, 2020 Steinberg Award, and 2017 Sally Ordway Award for Vision. In 2018, she was named a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow. Her new play, The Other Children of the Sun, will premiere at The Kennedy Center in 2025. She is also writing plays for Solas Nua (Washington, DC), Fishamble (Ireland), Long Wharf Theatre (New Haven, CT), Rattlestick Theater (New York), and the University of New Mexico. In 2023, she directed the US premiere of Missing at the Anchorage Opera and is now working on her first libretto, Little Ones, with Anishinaabe composer Danielle Jagelski.
Yazzie wrote, produced, and directed her debut feature film, A Winter Love, which has been in mainstream and Indigenous film festivals around the globe. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Master of Professional Writing program where she produced events featuring Stephen Hawking, Herbie Hancock, and Spalding Gray. Yazzie is a writer on AMC’s Dark Winds (Seasons 2 and 3), and is working on her second feature film.
