Madeline Sayet (MS): Tommy, I want to tell you that I never forgot the first play of yours I read, Hostile. I distinctly remember thinking, when I read it, “This is the next generation of Native theater.” It felt like suddenly something was being cracked open that could only happen now. All of these things were sort of synthesizing and building in this really interesting way. I am curious about what drives you towards playwriting, and towards writing something in particular. And I’m interested in how you synthesize the world around you. What is your process like? How do you start writing?

Tommy Endter (TE): As far as being a writer goes… how do I phrase this? I enjoy theater as a medium, I like encountering theater, but I’m not creating theater because that’s the objective. The way that I engage with playwriting is, I’m somebody who struggles with making big decisions in my life. And I typically write plays based around questions and experiences that I have, in order to kind of other them, to bring them out of myself and just explore them. I think the best way of phrasing how I approach writing is the exploration of personal questions and personal problems. I know “problems” feels like a really diminutive word.

MS: But something you’re trying to work through.

TE: Yeah. It’s a little more straightforward in Into Your Hands. Every play, you get a little self-insert in there somewhere, you know? You get a character that echoes your sensibilities, or echoes your personality. In this play, it’s Kenny, whose experience with life, other than location, are pretty one-to-one with me. And it’s been a sensitive exploration. I think that’s the best way that I can phrase that.

MS: I enjoyed that immensely in this piece, because that character felt so real and so present throughout the play. I’m also really interested in the delicious care with which you write your character descriptions and your stage directions. It made me feel like the people were very real and that you understand them very deeply. There was also just a playfulness to the world-building and it just felt so full because of that. Can you tell me a little bit about the people, the characters in the work, and what they mean to you?

TE: As far as the character development goes, it started off with a couple different ideas all over the place. I had these intrinsic questions that were tied to the piece that had to do with trans identity, combining that with native identity, combining that with mental health and how, in the current setting of a colonial world, these things kind of overlap and get really wrinkled up with each other. So that premise arrived first. And then I was kind of just sitting around, I hadn’t touched any scripts in a while, and I was like, I can feel something bubbling up inside of me. Built on Bones was a living room drama. I loved the formal idea of capturing everything that happens only in that room. [With Into Your Hands], I was really excited by the idea of writing, frankly, a workplace comedy. It started as a comedy. And now I don’t know how to classify it.

MS: I have this weird obsession when I’m reading a play sometimes with the sudden moment when I realize, Oh, the actors are gonna get to do this! You know what I mean? Working in Native theater for so long, I always have that moment with certain characters. Even though there’s conflict and there’s tragedy in this, they also have the workplace comedy moments, they have those family humor moments. I was really struck by that when I finished reading it: Oh, they’re gonna get to do this.

I was directing a Bill Yellow Robe reading last week of this play Sneaky. It’s from when he was in his early twenties, like, very early in his career, and it’s just these brothers who are goofy… Getting to see the actors get to do that, where it wasn’t all steeped in them having to directly interact with colonialism in a concrete way, but actually getting to be with each other... There’s something really beautiful you’ve set up in this play that allows for that space for Native people to get to be with each other and be whole. I thought, oh, they’re going to love working on this.

TE: It’s good to hear. When I start writing, it becomes kind of a fugue state of me alone with my laptop or my journal. Then when I finish whatever I’m working on, I’m sitting there thinking, How can a person safely access this? That’s a lesson I had to learn personally with an older piece, Hostile. I had a professor, Chaelon Bennet, who talked about how, when you’re acting in a scene, when your nervous system has reactions that simulate grief or rage—just because you’re “pretending,” that doesn’t mean that feeling is not real, and that your body isn’t reacting to it and producing chemical reactions. And writing is part of that journey. I worry about that constantly. Can someone safely do this?

MS: Yeah, I worry about it constantly. Also, because I created [Where We Belong], a play that was not a play in which I had to relive my own mental breakdown over and over again, and then I was like, What’s wrong with me? And they were like, Oh, your cortisol levels are unnaturally high! You’ve been in perpetual fight or flight mode! It’s something that theaters don’t necessarily think about when they’re looking at something, but [as a writer] you have to really think about how you are taking care of people. But I think the reason why it doesn’t feel that way to me here, even though there is a lot that’s being asked of the performers, is the way that community is set up around the characters. So people aren’t having to enter into this thing where there’s only trauma. They’re entering into it together as a group, and there is some healing at the end of the journey. And I think because you’ve built a world with so many Native characters, it gives them space to hold each other as an ensemble.

I have a question about the title. Where in the process did the title come into play?

TE: You know, I spent the most pivotal years of my life in Washington state around 2012 which was really… I wouldn’t say it was the death knell of the metal scene in the Pacific Northwest, but all the bands that were still touring were starting to get a little old. And my step brother was in a band, Beneath All Kaos. There was something about all the eras and music that were still alive at the time. New metal, hardcore scenes, stuff that I knew was directly connected to the spirit of this piece. And I knew intrinsically that Christianity was also going to be a really big part of the conversation, both textual and subtextual. And the title Into Your Hands came from, I just started listening to the album “Toxicity” by System of a Down over and over and over again, and I started reading about how the song “Chop Suey!”—which was, for me, personally, a very important song—and how it was written. I read that the words were chosen, not randomly, but they were going through books on their bookshelf and they pulled out a series of essays about Jesus’s last words on the cross. They just took some of what Jesus was supposedly saying as he was dying and put it into a song that really created, I think, a contrast for me between the processes of suicide, as a theme, and of Christ as a sacrifice, but also as a resurrection. And I knew that this play would be more tied to the resurrection side of things, rather than the initial journey of suicide. And it just kind of stuck. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” This idea of the final moment, when I submit everything I am for judgment and for care.

MS: It feels like the play doesn’t have a solely binary relationship when it comes to spirituality. A lot of the time I feel like there’s kind of a binary war between Christianity and traditional indigenous religions within Native plays. Could you tell me a little bit about the “W” word and its role within the piece, and how you came to it manifesting in that way?

TE: Originally, they weren’t in the script at all. It was just Kenny and Wisahkecahk, kind of having this spiritual battle of, to break it down very simply, thesis, antithesis, clash, synthesis, maybe. And both I myself and other members of the Emerging Writers Group thought that it didn’t feel truthful. And, you know, as far as trickster spirits go, there’s really a great deal of variation in terms of motive, in terms of scope, in terms of how they are perceived, just region by region, and especially amongst Cree people. There are so many different ideas of who Wisahkecahk or Whiskey Jack is in general. There are interpretations where he’s kind of an angelic figure, and then there are interpretations where that are a little more akin to some other trickster spirits, where he’s almost entirely malicious and almost everything that he does happens by accident. I came across a book by Solomon Ratt called The Way I Remember. In one part, it’s his account of his experience going to residential school. But in another part, one of the things he testifies was really hard from that residential school is that he’d be gone during the winter, which is when a lot of traditional stories would be shared. A lot of creation stories, specifically, a lot of stories about Wisahkecahk, and the book was parceling through them. And there was a story about Wisahkecahk and this other spirit where they’re in direct conflict, and Wisahkecahk is really scared—which I thought was striking, because I don’t think I had heard or read a story where the trickster spirit was fucking terrified. It’s also a very Native story in that it’s also kind of grotesque. He gets a stoat or an ermine, and he’s like, hey, can you do me a favor, can you crawl up that spirit’s ass and eat its heartstrings to kill it? It’s this whole ordeal of him arguing with this ferret to please save him. It’s also a story about transformation. The chapter is titled “How the Ermine Got a Black Tail.” You know, it goes up, it comes back out, and it’s a different color. And I thought that the story was a really great narrative, one to one, for what it seems like this spirit is asking of Kenny. The spirit was clearly preparing Kenny for something. Like, you’re gonna need this. This is the only way you can live your life for things to work out. I think it was important that it became a building up of bravery.

MS: One of the things I really enjoyed about Wisahkecahk being in there was how it made possible the naming of Kenny’s identity as a gift very early on. From the beginning, there was someone in the space who was able to name that.

TE: For myself and a lot of the other genderqueer and trans people I know, one of the first things you wrangle is, Why am I like this? What’s going on with me? And how you approach that is really important to how you live a really safe and healthy life. And you know, Wisahkecahk and other trickster spirits, they’re kind of like queer icons. At least, in every piece of literature I’ve been reading lately, and amongst Crees specifically, Wisahkecahk is a pretty direct allegory for transness or queerness. And I thought, there’s something here to keep pulling on. And Kenny has gone through this journey largely alone, and I felt like it was important to name it right off the bat, that even if you don’t interpret it as a gift, it’s important to recognize it as a rebirth. I saw a tweet a couple months ago that said, “They should invent something that’s the opposite of killing yourself,” and someone else responded, “It’s called transitioning.” That part of the conversation [in the play] where Wisahkecahk is like, You’re trans, and you’re made this way because you also need to participate in the making of the world in some way… to me, it’s pivotal to the soul of the entire piece.

MS: The late chief of my nation, Chief Ralph Sturges, when my family was confused about this whole theater thing, said, “You have to respect it, because it means she has great latitude of mind.” And there’s something about this space of cultural understandings of expansiveness of self, or beyond-a-thing, that I feel a lot of Native cultures understand. A lot of cultural systems that existed before colonization honored trans identities as a gift, because to be beyond one thing, why would that ever be bad? To be able to see more is intrinsically something of help to the community.

TE: I’m working through a draft right now. I mean, aren’t we all, always?

MS: (Laughs) Insert “Madeline cries” into the transcript…

TE: It’s weird to say the easy part is done, because it has been a really hard process. But the easy part is done in the comparative sense, and now a lot of the really hard work has to happen. You know that thing that John Trudell said in that interview, “Protect your spirit, because you’re in the place where spirits get eaten.” You’ve also written an incredible, deeply personal play. How do you protect yourself when you’re writing something that’s really, really close to you, or really within you?

MS: That’s a very good question. I think one of the things I would not recommend is performing it! No, it’s a really tricky question. I think it’s hard whenever it’s something that’s so personal, that’s also cultural, that’s also talking about things that we haven’t always talked about in our communities. For me, that’s the hard place. Since I started writing about things that are specifically Mohegan, I feel like my stress levels have gone up like a million percent. Because I used to just be directing other Native writers’ works. It was indigenous and it was cultural and it had similar values, but it was uplifting them and their story. When you’re dealing with something so sensitive and personal as the representation of yourself, or yourself within your community, or how your community might think about a thing—until we have a lot more representation, there’s never going to be an easy way to navigate it. For me, it’s just about having as much community around you as possible that tells you it’s worth doing. With Where We Belong, because it was Mohegan, there were tiers of, oh, something’s been released. I felt I should never say this out loud, ever. But then my mom saw it, and she was nodding. And then our elders saw it, and they found it really meaningful. Our chief saw it. It was once people in my community found it meaningful—until then I just felt crazy and scared.

How has it worked in EWG? Have you had an opportunity to hear folks read it before the final readings? Or have you been separate from other Native folks for a lot of the process while you’re writing?

TE: I’ve been separate from other native folks for the majority of the process. Congratulations: you’re the first Native person to read the script besides me. It’s only now starting to step outside of this zone of self, and also the Emerging Writers Group, because I really want… how do I say this? I have never felt safer in a writing group than I have with the Emerging Writers Group, but I know that when we start rehearsals in a couple weeks here, that is going to be a deeply transformative experience for myself and for the piece, and a lot of the cortisol that’s in my system and a lot of the tension in my shoulders will be released or worked through as I’m in the room with other indigenous people.

MS: I feel like Native theater is its own sort of nation, in a weird way. Like, I’m accountable to Mohegan and then I’m accountable to Native theater. (Laughs) And they’re the same size, probably! I think getting to be with other folks, getting to work on this, getting to work on this at the Public, I think all of that is going to be very, very meaningful for folks. Because that doesn’t always happen. I remember when I was a baby, when I was still an actor, in a different lifetime, I did [Mary Kathryn Nagle’s] Manahatta EWG reading, and at that moment, the fact that there was a female character who was like a boss, who was a northeastern Native—to me, it was earth-shattering. And that was a decade and a half ago. This next generation being able to engage with the issues in your play, I think there will be a lot of healing in that. I want to say thank you for this play. Sometimes it’s not as obvious, I think, how much each one of these stories actually moves things, moves the conversation, opens things up, creates a space of possibility. And every time I read one of your plays, I feel the world gets a little bigger.

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Tommy Endter is a Nehithaw actor and playwright from the lands of the Suquamish on the Key Peninsula and Ho-Chunk land in Verona, Wisconsin. A founding member of the Fair Verona Shakespeare Company, Endter has been involved in the theater since 2012, eventually moving on to study at The New School of Drama, graduating in 2020. Their works have been most recently seen with Amplify Theatre Collective in their 2021 showcase, with their play Hostile, and the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, where they won the 7th annual competition in 2022 for their play Built on Bones. A scene from Built on Bones would later be featured in The Public Theater’s “What do you know?: Reflections from Indigenous Artists” in November of 2022.

Madeline Sayet is a Mohegan writer and director who believes the stories we pass down shape our collective possible futures. For her work she has been honored as a Forbes 30 Under 30, TED Fellow, MacDowell Fellow, Hermitage Fellow, Native American 40 Under 40, and recipient of the White House Champion of Change Award from President Obama. 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. The national tour of her play Where We Belong produced by Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in association with the Folger Shakespeare Library, included such venues as: The Public Theater, The Goodman Theater, Seattle Rep, The Folger Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, Hudson Valley Shakespeare, Philadelphia Theater Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Portland Center Stage. She is a Clinical Associate Professor at ASU with the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS) and served six years as the Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP), creating new programs, awards, and opportunities for emerging Native Theater artists. She is a resident artist at Centre Theatre Group and a member of Long Wharf Theatre’s artistic ensemble. In addition to her work as a stage director and playwright, she recently directed two short films about Mohegan history: Flying Bird’s Diary and Up and Down the River. www.madelinesayet.com