Choctaw sci-fi epic comes to stage

Tisch drama stage presents “Perhaps the World Ends Here,” a sci-fi epic, drawing from Choctaw culture and cosmology.

Tisch drama stage will open its spring ’24 lineup with “Perhaps the World Ends Here,” an original comedy written and directed by Daniel Leeman Smith. The production will run in the Abe Burrows Theater February 29 – March 9.

A sci-fi epic that blends video game culture and Choctaw cosmology in the style of Theatre of the Ridiculous, Perhaps the World Ends Here tells the story of Frankie Brown, a young Choctaw woman with big dreams and an even bigger destiny. Hopelessly devoted to becoming a professional video gamer and e-sports star despite some serious ineptitude, she pawns her personal belongings to pay rent and further her dreams. After unwittingly losing the key to the universe, she must undertake a journey of epic proportions accompanied by her queer best friend, her granddad, and a fearsome hopaiyai to prevent a great cataclysm.

Leeman Smith is a proud two-spirit citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma currently based in New York City. He is a director, playwright, and theatre educator whose work is often positioned at the intersection of community, art, education, and activism with a focus on Native joy. He is making his TD STAGE debut developing Perhaps the World Ends Here for the stage, after it premiered as a commissioned screenplay at Local Classic Repertory in 2020.

“The Department of Drama is excited and honored to lift up the work of Daniel Leeman Smith, who teaches our course in Indigenous Theatre,” said Tisch Drama Chair Tomi Tsunoda.

“Daniel’s work as a playwright, director, producer, educator, and activist offers an incredible example to our students of the kind of artistic citizenship our curriculum aims to make possible.”

She added, “In a moment when NYU is opening its new Center for Indigenous Studies, we are glad to be shining a light on this contemporary Indigenous play, which manifests its cultural legacies not only in the content of the story, but in the dramaturgy and process of the production.”

Tisch Drama will also host a Zoom conversation exploring comedy and contemporary Indigenous performance with Leeman Smith and other special guests. Watch for updates.