Tiospei

Ableza's Artistic Director, Diane Way, wrote one of ten new plays to win the 1997 Frank Silvera Writer's Workshop award. As a result, Ableza was invited to perform a staged reading of the new play, "Tiospei" at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in August 1997.

We were the first Native American theatre company to participate at the festival, and presented the only staged reading to be partially cast outside the Festival.

"Tiospei" is a story set during the late 19th century, the time of first major interaction between Native American and African and African Americans at the Indian Boarding Schools like the Carlisle Indian School and the Hampton Institute.

But first, we had to get there...

	And that meant driving across the country from San Jose, CA to North Carolina. We started out with two mini-vans and a station wagon, camping and cooking equipment, seven adults and six young people. But... the station wagon didn't make it through the Mojave desert, so we left it, our cooking equipment and some of our camping equipment, loaded into the mini-vans, and kept driving.
We stopped at several rest stops, although we kept pushing. Our first real stop was in Flagstaff, AZ
	After Flagstaff, we drove straight through to North Carolina. The drivers got to see the sun rising over Arkansas, where an Internet friend bought us breakfast... Ain't it grand to meet other Indians on-line?
Eating was always an adventure... Especially when the adults were tired...

but we made it....