Our Team

Rhiana Yazzie

Artistic Director

Rhiana Yazzie is a 2021 Lanford Wilson and 2020 Steinberg Award winning playwright, a director, a filmmaker, and the Artistic Director of New Native Theatre, which she started in 2009 as a response to the lack of connection and professional opportunities between Twin Cities theaters and the Native community. She is a 2018 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow and was recognized with a 2017 Sally Ordway Award for Vision and has been a Playwrights’ Center fellow multiple times (McKnight 2016/17 & Jerome 2006 & 2010). A Navajo Nation citizen (Ta’neeszahnii bashishchiin dóó Táchii’nii dashinalí), she’s seen her plays on stages from Alaska to Mexico including in Carnegie Hall’s collaboration with American Indian Community House & Eagle Project. She has a new co-commissioned play in the works with Long Wharf Theatre and Rattlestick Theater and is currently developing her newest play Nancy, a Native bio-perspective on Nancy Reagan, a sequel to Queen Cleopatre and Princess Pocahontas, which was commissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater for the American Revolutions cycle. Her first feature film, A Winter Love, (writer/dir/prod/actor) will premiere at festivals in 2021/22. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Masters of Professional Writing where she produced events featuring Stephen Hawking, Madeleine Albright, Paula Vogel, Herbie Hancock, and Spalding Gray.

Noreen Quadir

Communications Advisor

Noreen Quadir is an actress, writer, and media specialist. She is the Communications Advisor for New Native Theatre. Noreen grew up in Connecticut, where she studied at Southern Connecticut State University and received her BA degree in Theatre. She also studied at the Circle in the Square Theatre School and Magnet Theater in New York City. Noreen has worked with a variety of theatre and arts organizations, where she developed communications plans and marketing strategies, created content, and managed online platforms. She has also performed in several theatrical productions, including The Vagina Monologues, A Muslim in the Midst, Sharum, and Pretty White Girl, as well as various children productions such as Magic, Moonlight, and Mardi Gras. Aside from her theatre and media work, she is also an advocate for various social causes including increasing diversity, representation, and equity in the arts, equality, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability. Noreen has also taught and tutored kids in drama and literature. Her favorite food is chocolate. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @NoreenZizzyQ.

Charli Fool Bear

Artistic Producer

Charli Fool Bear (Koppinger) is a Yanktonai Dakota playwright, actor, and now Artistic Producer from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Following high school, Charli attended Dartmouth College, where she studied theatre and received special academic recognition from playwright Joe Sutton. Her play, The Crickets Ate the Moon, was the first runner-up of Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program’s inaugural playwriting contest, where it received a workshop and reading at Yale University. The Crickets Ate the Moon also received a staged reading at Dartmouth College, where Charli received the Susan DeBevoise Wright Award for her work on the play.

More recently, Charli was an active participant in the vibrant theatre community of Bismarck, ND, where she worked closely with all of the city’s theatres in various capacities, including writing, stage managing, assistant directing, and fundraising. She also performed in several productions, including The SpongeBob Musical, RENT, and Cotton Patch Gospel. She was commissioned by YIPAP to write a new play, WAKE, for their 5th Annual YIPAP Festival, where it received a virtual reading. She continues to write stories that explore grief, trauma, poverty, and womanhood in Native communities.

Outside of theatre, Charli has been independently studying, writing, and recording music for over 15 years. She is passionate about bringing theatre to Indigenous communities and creating theatre for Native audiences, and therefore very proud and excited to be a part of the New Native Theatre team.

Trey Porter

Artistic Producer

Trey Porter is a multidisciplinary artist and wearer of many hats, namely as an actor for stage and screen, a drag queen, model, singer, director, and an author of prose, poetry, and plays. Born in the Twin Cities and raised in the Duluth area, Trey is also Kaqchikel Maya and a reconnecting member of the White Earth Nation. They are an MSHSL state speech champion, Academic All-American Award winner, and nationally ranked public speaker through the NSDA. They received a BA in Theatre: Performance, Playwriting, Directing & Dramaturgy from Augsburg University and studied arts performing social change at the University of Puerto Rico.

Most recently, Trey’s drag persona, aka Silvestrey, was commissioned by Target as a featured drag artist for their annual Pride Gay-la and modeled for Buckanaga Social Club, a local native fashion brand featured at New York Fashion Week. Trey also helped build an Advanced Trauma Training workshop for members of the Air National Guard Bureau at the College of St. Scholastica and was a featured poet at UW Eau Claire’s Indigenous People’s Day Celebration. Since graduating, they’ve had the pleasure of acting, writing, and stage managing at companies like Phoenix Theatre, Full Circle Theatre, History Theatre, Other Tiger Productions, Pangea World Theatre, and Ten Thousand Things Theatre.

The themes of Trey’s work vary by medium, but they enjoy exploring the relationship between humanity and nature, indigenous futurism and decolonization, history and the supernatural, and most especially, queer joy. Outside of the theatre, Trey loves to read, hike, and watch horror movies. They’re incredibly excited for the future and what the promise of empowering native artists and audiences portends.