Madeline Sayet’s accolades as director, playwright, performer, and scholar include being named a MacDowell Fellow, Hermitage Fellow, TED Fellow, MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow, Forbes 30 Under 30, and a recipient of the White House Champion of Change Award from President Obama. As someone who is both a citizen of the Mohegan Tribe in CT and Jewish, she believes deeply that the stories we choose to pass down shape our collective possible futures. She is a resident artist at Centre Theatre Group in LA, and a member of Long Wharf Theater’s artistic ensemble. As both a Shakespearean director and scholar, she serves as Clinical Associate Professor in the English Department at Arizona State University, with the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS). She has served six years as Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP), running an annual new Native play festival, and creating programming to uplift the next generation of Native Theatre artists.
Her play Where We Belong, first performed at Shakespeare’s Globe, recently completed a national tour produced by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in association with the Folger Shakespeare Library, venues included: The Public Theater, Goodman Theater, Seattle Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore Center Stage, Hudson Valley Shakespeare, Portland Center Stage, Philadelphia Theatre Company, and the Folger Theater. Her other plays include: The Fish; The Last Laugh; Up and Down the River; The Knife; The Neverland.
She recently directed her first two short films: Flying Bird’s Diary about the last fluent speaker of the Mohegan language, and Up and Down the River, about the first Native soldier to die in the Revolutionary War. She currently serves on the boards of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and the New Harmony Project. Where We Belong is published by both Methuen Drama and Dramatists Play Service. The Neverland will be published in 2026 as part of a new Methuen Drama Anthology of Native theater. www.madelinesayet.com