Bethany Hughes
Post-Show Facilitator

Bethany Hughes (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of American Culture, and Director of the Native American Studies Program. She is a performance scholar and cultural historian, and her work focuses on the representation of Native Americans in theatrical performance and contemporary Indigenous theater.

Her book Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeneity, published by New York University Press, articulates the aesthetic, racial, and political implications of the “Indian” in live theater. It won the Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the Labriola National American Indian Data Center’s Book Award, and co-won the George Freedley Memorial Award from the Theatre Library Association.

Bethany teaches classes on Native American studies; Indigenous performance, race, and musical theater; American performance; and critical university studies. Her writing can be found in Theatre Journal, American Periodicals, Theatre Survey, Mobilities, and Theatre Topics, and on HowlRound Theatre Commons.