Hiawatha Project

Hiawatha Project was founded in 2011 with a heart for social justice and a desire to create relevant original performances through an innovative development process connecting professional artists with community members through the making of professional theater.

Hiawatha’s first major work “Camino,” premiered in 2011, as a poetic exploration of the consequences of laws such as Arizona SB 1070, and exposed the profitable business of private immigrant detention centers in the U.S. Three years in the making, “Camino” was praised as “smart, sharp and witty, not to mention spoken in three languages” (City Paper) with “scenes of imagination and poetic insight” (Pittsburgh P.G.) 

In 2017 the company premiered “JH: Mechanics of a Legend” developed over four years in close collaboration with a diverse ensemble of artists and academic experts. “JH” melds the language of mechanics, century old ballads and primary historical records to explore the legend of John Henry. “JH” was awarded a prestigious August Wilson Center Programming grant for $50,000 and was praised as, “a fever dream of history that combines folklorically large emotions with a winnowing read on a nation’s past” which will “will alternately rouse you and break your heart.” (City Paper.)

Developed over two years by a team of professional artists who are also the mothers to young children, “My Traveling Song” premiered in the spring of 2019. “MTS” is an interactive original play with music especially made for children ages 1-5, the young at heart, and the grown-ups who love them. Critic Wendy Arons of the Pittsburgh Tatler wrote that “…both young children and their adult minders were captivated…” All 14 performances sold out.

In the thick of the pandemic, in April of 2020, Hiawatha engineered a tactile immersive experience to coincide with a free online viewing of the original “My Traveling Song” production. Available for just 48 hours, the performance was experienced by about 300 quarantining children and parents from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, Ireland and Australia.  After three attempts to remount “My Traveling Song” in a co-production with The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust as a part of the International Children’s Festival in 2022, the project was disappointingly halted due to the changing safety needs and challenges faced during the ongoing COVID pandemic.

In May of 2023, Hiawatha Projected premiered “Buoyant Sea” in a sold out run with The International Children’s Festival in a co-presentation with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.  “Buoyant Sea” is an immersive water-table-play that explores the properties of water as a metaphor for states of being and change. Conceived and developed during the thick of COVID lockdowns, “Buoyant Sea” considers our bodies as containers for changing emotions and how we can move through feelings, relationships and perspectives together with those we love.  Young children and their grown-ups sing and splash along with the ever-exuberant character of MC, and the timid, Rumi-quoting character of CC, exploring misty rivers and the icy arctic through participatory play with real mist, ice and water.  Together the audience along with this pair of best friends discover that when the world changes around us, like water, we can adapt, flow, and float up again.  “Buoyant Sea” is currently in negotiations for future touring engagements. 

In June of 2022, Hiawatha Project presented a staged reading of “In Our Time: Pandemic Stories from the Frontlines” written and directed by Martin in coordination with Theatre Communications Group National Conference.  Inspired by Martin’s interviews with women ICU physicians on the frontlines of the COVID pandemic, and Ernest Hemingway’s groundbreaking World War I novel set against the backdrop of a pandemic nearly 100 years earlier, “In Our Time: Pandemic Stories from the Frontlines” weaves Hemingway’s novel, In Our Time, with first hand accounts to create a moving and poetic account of 2 pandemic eras echoing with parallel themes of loss, grief and alienation. Theatrically adventurous and surprising, characters and stories layer through time and stage space, as they reach for meaning and connection in the spaces between words and worlds. 

In February of 2024 Hiawatha Project will present a reading of “In Our Time”  in collaboration with City of Asylum as a part of their prestigious Healthcare and Humanities Program with a talkback led by New York Times acclaimed opinion writer on healthcare and COVID, Theresa Brown, and Dr. Lisa Suzanne Parker leader of the Center for Bioethics and Health Law at the University of Pittsburgh. The artistic team will then present a staged workshop presentation with design elements in collaboration with Off The Wall Productions at Carnegie Stage.

Hiawatha Project the company has received support from the AER Capacity Building, The August Wilson Center Legacy Fund, August Wilson Center Programming Fund, Brooks Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, Heinz Small Arts Initiative, The McKinney Foundation, Off The Wall Foundation, Opportunity Fund, The Sprout Fund, PA Council on the Arts, The Pittsburgh Foundation  Hiawatha Project’s “JH: Mechanics of a Legend” was chosen to be presented as a part of the New Hazlett Theatre CSA Series in 2015. Hiawatha Project’s “Camino” was presented as a part of “TENACITY: Sprout’s 10th Anniversary Retrospective” with an installation presented as a part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival Juried Show in 2013.