The deaths of sybil bolton (2019)
written and directed by David Blakely
HTC Playwright-in-Residence Emeritus David Blakely returns to recount a shocking true-life piece of Oklahoma history: the Osage Reign of Terror. Based on Dennis P. McAuliffe, Jr.’s 1990 nonfiction book The Deaths of Sybil Bolton, Blakely’s adaptation depicts a journalist uncovering lies, cover-ups, and murder on his quest for the truth: what exactly happened to his grandmother during the systematic reign of terror that killed an estimated 60-plus wealthy, full-blood Osage Native Americans in the 1920s? Blakely expands his four-time TATE-winning* one-act play Four Ways to Die into a full-length true-crime story from Oklahoma’s past, with an intimate look at how trauma, legacies, and lies are inherited.
Photos by C. Andrew Nichols.
A Note on the Casting: Heller Theatre Company has upheld white fragility and supremacy in the American theatre, in part through the casting on white actors in the roles of non-white characters. That is the case with one of the roles in The Deaths of Sybil Bolton. This is an act of erasure and exclusion and de-centers BIPOC voices; it was not acceptable then, and it is not acceptable now. To find more information and read the list of demands from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) theatre-makers, visit www.weseeyouWAT.com. To see what actionable steps Heller is taking to create and maintain a safe, equitable space for BIPOC theatremakers, click here.
