Theatre Staff
DeLanna Studi
Artistic Director
DeLanna Studi is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and has more than twenty-five years of experience as a performer, storyteller, educator, facilitator, advocate, and activist. Her theatre credits include the first national Broadway tour of the Tony Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning play August: Osage County; off-Broadway’s Gloria: A Life (Daryl Roth Theatre); Informed Consent (the Duke on 42nd Street); and regional theatres (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage, Cornerstone, and Indiana Repertory Theatre). DeLanna originated roles in more than eighteen world premieres, including fourteen Native productions. A pivotal moment in her career was writing and performing And So We Walked: An Artist’s Journey Along the Trail of Tears, which retraced her family’s footsteps along the Trail of Tears with her father. And So We Walked has been produced throughout the country and was the first American play chosen for the Journées Théâtrales de Carthage in Tunisia, Africa. Last year, it made its off-Broadway debut at Minetta Lane, where it was recorded for Audible. In film and television, DeLanna stars in the Peabody Award–winning Edge of America, Hallmark’s Dreamkeeper, Goliath, Shameless, and General Hospital. She is a 2022 USA Fellow and a recipient of the Butcher Scholar Award, a MAP Fund Grant, a Cherokee Preservation Grant, and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Fund. Since 2007, she has served as chair of the SAG-AFTRA National Native Americans Committee.
Elisa Blandford
Managing Director
Elisa Blandford has produced over fifty new play workshops and readings, a dozen short play festivals, nine world premieres, and a few touring productions with Native Voices. She co-founded Vanguard Repertory Company and the Windmill Arts Center, a black box theatre and dance studio dedicated to fostering the performing and visual arts. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in theatre from Florida State University and received an MBA from the University of Redlands.
Jennifer Bobiwash
Artistic Associate
Jennifer Bobiwash is an Ojibway actor, playwright, and director, and is enrolled with the Mississauga First Nation. Her select regional theatre credits include Between Two Knees at McCarter Theatre and Seattle Rep, Fake It Until You Make It at Arena Stage, and Manahatta at Yale Rep. She has appeared in the world premieres of They Don’t Talk Back, Fairly Traceable, and Bingo Hall at Native Voices, as well as Devilfish and Whalesong at Perseverance Theatre. On screen, she has appeared in Magnum P.I. and Rutherford Falls. Jennifer was part of the inaugural class at the National Institute for Direction and Ensemble Creation at Pangea World Theatre, a National Playwrights Conference Semi-Finalist, a Season 21 Volt Lab writer with Company One Theatre, and an Artist in Residence at UC San Diego’s Thurgood Marshall College. She continues to explore stories of First Nations people and identity, inspiring youth to realize their full potential through the performing arts, and believes that performance is a way to promote conversation and elicit action.
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Sati Thyme
Production Manager
Sati Thyme has been involved in various aspects of theatre throughout her life, including performance, tech, management, and more. Originally from Santa Cruz, California, Sati helped run a theatre company and ran her own voice lesson business before she moved to Los Angeles to receive her Bachelor’s degree in stage management from California State University–Fullerton. She has worked as a stage manager throughout the Greater Los Angeles area for the past nine years, for companies such as The Fountain Theatre, New City Arts Theatre, Plan-B Entertainment and Delusion. She has gone on tour around the U.S. a couple times and has been fortunate enough to travel abroad for projects in Abu Dhabi and Thailand. Last year, Sati had the absolute pleasure of being the assistant stage manager for the CineVita, working on their inaugural production, Tarantino: Pulp Rock.
Sierra Rosetta
Literary Assistant
Sierra Rosetta is an emerging Indigenous playwright and theatre academic enrolled in the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. Sierra is currently based in Chicago, Illinois, where she was named one of Theatre Communication Group’s Rising Leaders of Color in Chicago in 2024. Sierra is an advocate for Native voices and women in theatre spaces. Her first full-length play, From the Old Wood Forest, had a staged reading at Yale University in April 2024, where it was the winner of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program’s Young Native Playwright Award, as well as another staged reading at the Newberry Library in Chicago in January 2025. Sierra’s second full-length play, A Century of Sparrows, had a reading at Storyknife Writers Retreat in Homer, Alaska, in July 2024 and the Association of Writers & Writing Programs in Los Angeles in 2025. Sierra’s other works include The Things That We Know (Northwestern College) and Remember (Northwestern College). Learn more about Sierra at
www.sierrarosetta.com | @sierra.rosetta | bit.ly/SierraRosetta-NPX.
