Featured Playwright — Kenneth T. Williams
Each month we interview member playwrights to share their work, stories and inspiration with the community. We recently spoke with Kenneth T. Williams! Kenneth’s professional path is a “guidance counselor’s nightmare.” He’s been a soldier, rock musician, journalist, First Nations land claims researcher, and door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. As a journalist, he was a member of the very first news team for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. He’s the first Indigenous person to earn an MFA in Playwriting and become an associate professor at the University of Alberta’s Department of Drama.
His plays, The Herd, In Care, Café Daughter, Gordon Winter, Thunderstick, Bannock Republic, Suicide Notes and Three Little Birds have been produced across Canada. He also co-wrote Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show. As a dramaturg, he has helped many playwrights at all levels develop their plays.
He lives in Edmonton with his partner, Dr. Melissa Stoops, with their cats, Augustus and Drusilla. He is a member of the George Gordon First Nation in the Treaty 4 territory.
Photograph by Aloys Fleischmann
Tell us how you got your start writing plays.
Laziness. I was moping about in my undergrad because I didn’t have enough of a portfolio to show to the instructors in the English department to be accepted into any of the creative writing classes. I had some stuff but it wasn’t finished and it was also… well… crap. A friend mentioned that the Drama department had an introductory class for playwriting taught by Bill Meilen (those who know, know). It was like a veil got lifted. My life’s trajectory changed in that class. Playwriting made sense to me. I wrote with enthusiasm and finished script after script. There was one, little problem though: I had absolutely no drama experience. None. I avoided it in highschool and I took one drama class in junior high. I was pursuing playwriting but had no idea how a play was produced, directed, how sets were built, what actors needed or how they prepared for roles.
You received your MFA in playwriting from the University of Alberta in 1992, the first Indigenous person to do so, and are now on the faculty. What was your experience of pursuing playwriting as a young Cree person like, and do you see any differences now as a professor?
There are so many things, it’s really hard to narrow it down. I’ll name a few but I don’t want anyone to think that these were the only differences. So, what was happening then? Well, the Oka Crisis was just starting up. In Alberta, the Klein government was trampling on the rights of the Lubicon Cree by leasing their unsurrendered land to oil and timber companies. A Pikani Nation burial ground was going to be flooded with the new Oldman River Dam. Indigenous protest was at best seen as childish and at worst criminal. Theatre wise, the only play with Indigenous content that was taught was The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga. Indigenous history and culture are better understood now. Indigenous Theatre is an actual class now. It may sound like a joke now but it was true then that the first Indigenous playwright I ever studied was myself. At the UofA, no one knew of or taught Tomson Highway, Drew Hayden Taylor, Daniel David Moses, or Monique Mojica. I wouldn’t know about them and many others until my MFA because a classmate, Sandra Cunningham, was studying Indigenous theatre as part of her MA.
Is there any advice that you would offer to emerging playwrights?
If you want to create characters and stories that will impact audiences in a meaningful way you need to nurture a rich life outside of theatre.
Your most recent publication was The Herd, published by Scirocco Drama, a story in which “Culture, science, and commerce collide when twin white buffalo calves are born on a First Nations ranch in Saskatchewan.” What inspired the creation of this play, and what do you hope audiences take away from it?
I saw the dramatic potential in a situation that would be unique to Indigenous people here. Way back in my reporting days, one of the earliest stories I covered was about an Indigenous man who was selling sweetgrass braids. This was seen as commercializing culture and there was a lot of resistance to it. At the time, the only acceptable way to receive a sweetgrass braid was to go and collect it yourself or to have it gifted to you. Times have changed. I see sweetgrass braids sold at pow wows now. I asked myself, how would we react if white buffalo were industrialized for profit like sweetgrass? It’s not a far out question either. This is something that will happen, I’m sure of it. As for the audience, I hope they enjoy it.
Speaking of buffalo, I’m writing these while I’m in Lethbridge as a guest of the International Buffalo Relations Institute (IBRI) and I’m here celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Buffalo Treaty. This is a modern treaty between Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island who are committed to rematriating the buffalo to their traditional territories. I have to admit, it’s emotional for me now and then. If anyone wants to know more about the treaty or the IBRI, click these links: https://www.buffalotreaty.com/ and https://buffalorelations.land/.
What are you working on next?
I always find answering this question curses the thing I’m actually working on. So, trust me when I say “lots of things.” I’ll leave it at that.
Do you have any favourite Canadian plays and/or which artists are currently inspiring you?
A major benefit of being a professor is seeing the new and exciting artists who are about to make their mark. They inspire me. Yeah, I’m biased.
Find Kenneth’s plays available for purchase at the Canadian Play Outlet HERE!
Disclaimer: Playwrights Guild of Canada (“PGC”) is a national arts service mandated to engage and grow an active Canadian writing community. We promote Canadian plays around the world to advance the creative rights and interests of professional Canadian playwrights for the stage. The views of our members are their own. The opinions of PGC as an association remain neutral.
