Redface: Native American Representation in American Theatre, with Dr. Bethany Hughes

Event Summary

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Date(s): Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Time: 6:00pm-7:30pm
Venue: Downtown Branch of AADL
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Event Description

American theatre has a long history of misrepresenting Native Americans, often turning to reductive, stereotypical, or racist tropes to depict Indigenous characters. This talk explores how the “Stage Indian” developed in American theatre, how redface is more than a costume and make-up, and how the stakes of redface impact Native American nations and Indigenous peoples. Drawn from her recent book, Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeniety, Dr. Bethany Hughes will explain how audiences encounter “Indians” and what audiences can do to resist the harmful history of redface.

Dr. Bethany Hughes (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is Assistant Professor in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan. She is a performance scholar and cultural historian interested in how performance constructs culturally recognizable categories and offers possibilities to resist or remake those same categories. Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeneity is her first book..

For adults and teens.