NORMAN, Okla. \u2013 The Oklahoma Indigenous Theater Company will return to the world of live performance with a staged reading of \u201c\u2026 As Needed for Pain,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0a one-act play written by OITC co-founder Maya Torralba (Wichita, Kiowa and Comanche).\u00a0<\/p>\n The performance takes place at 7 p.m., Tuesday, May 5 at the Jacobson House Native Art Center, 609 Chautauqua Ave. in Norman.\u00a0<\/p>\n The May 5 date for the performance is also the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR). This date also commemorates the birthday of Northern Cheyenne tribal member Hanna Harris, who went missing on July 4, 2013, and is forever 21 years old. OITC selected this date for their performance to show unity with other Indigenous theater companies and university fine arts programs on this day of prayer and remembrance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Torralba\u2019s play holds a mirror to four generations of Kiowa women whose daily lives are battles for survival against assimilation, chemical dependency and domestic violence. Throughout the story, Grandma Spider \u2013 a voice from the Kiowa past and present \u2013 gives strength and hope to these women through her prayers and words of encouragement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis story is a message of hope for those families affected,\u201d Torralba said. \u201cMy sister\u2019s birthday coincides with this day, and her death is one of the many MMIWR cases. I want to honor her memory by sharing a part of her story and how our family is coping with her loss.\u201d<\/p>\n The play features an all-female Indigenous cast and creative team that includes director Anevay Greenwood (Otis-Missouria). Greenwood is an actor, director and playwright based in Oklahoma City. In 2024, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater Performance from the University of Central Oklahoma.\u00a0<\/p>\n Greenwood is the current artistic director of the Oklahoma Indigenous Theatre Company. She is also a member of the Oklahoma Film Actors Studio. Since 2022, she has been an instructor for The Chickasaw Arts Academy for Theater Performance. In 2025, Greenwood had her play \u201cNative in America\u201d\u00a0produced by Theatre Crude Fringe Festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a powerful story (\u201c\u2026 As Needed for Pain\u201d)\u00a0that needs to be told,\u201d Greenwood said. \u201cI\u00a0want to thank Maya for trusting me to direct this show.\u201d<\/p>\n Snacks and refreshments will be available before the performance. A talk back will follow the performance, with a cedaring and prayer concluding the evening\u2019s events.\u00a0<\/p>\n Based on sensitive content, audience discretion is advised.\u00a0<\/p>\n The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Oklahoma Indigenous Theatre Company at 405-423-6455.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cherokeephoenix.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NORMAN, Okla. \u2013 The Oklahoma Indigenous Theater Company will return to the world of live performance with a staged reading of \u201c\u2026 As Needed for Pain,\u201d\u00a0a one-act play written by OITC co-founder Maya Torralba (Wichita, Kiowa and Comanche).\u00a0 The performance takes place at 7 p.m., Tuesday, May 5 at the Jacobson House Native Art Center, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2376525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[462549,422479,462547,462550,462552,341177,341179,462545,341175,306904,462553,462546,462548,462551],"class_list":["post-2376524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-canadian-prairies","tag-comanche","tag-demographics-of-oklahoma","tag-great-plains","tag-indian-wars-of-the-american-old-west","tag-indigenous-peoples-of-north-america","tag-indigenous-peoples-of-the-americas","tag-kiowa","tag-native-american-tribes","tag-oklahoma","tag-plains-of-the-united-states","tag-plains-tribes","tag-society-of-oklahoma","tag-united-states-federal-indian-policy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Oklahoma-Indigenous-Theater-Company-to-present-\u2018\u2026-As-Needed-for.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2376524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2376526,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376524\/revisions\/2376526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2376525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2376524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2376524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2376524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}