DISTANT THUNDER is a fictional story based on an amalgam of true events that have happened throughout Indian Country over the course of many years. We chose to set it on the Blackfeet Reservation because it is where Shaun met his mentor, Darrell Robes Kipp, and began to discover the connection between language and identity. Darrell co-founded the Piegan Institute and the Cuts Wood School** with Dorothy Still Smoking where the work to preserve Pikunni language and culture is now carried on by his son, Darren Kipp. The early idea for our show began there, was nurtured by Randy Reinholz and Jean Bruce Scott at Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles, by Donna Trinkoff at Amas Musical Theatre in New York with (readings and a lab), and further supported by Bill Rauch at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Kent Nicholson of Playwrights Horizons passed the script along to Michael Baron and, thanks to Michael, we have arrived at Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma. 

Eternal thanks to our elders and advisors, the aforementioned Darrell Robes Kipp and his wife Roberta Kipp, Jill Kipp-Blueheron, Redman Little Plume, Robert Owens Greygrass, our current cultural advisor, Brent Florendo, and our beloved Joseph FireCrow. More recently, we have had the gift of learning dances from Michael Taylor and Louis Mofsie, artistic director of the award-winning Thunderbird American Indian Dancers and the gift of rehearsal space donated by Patricia Ripley and Butch Grier at Ripley-Grier Studios in New York. We are also grateful to our past supporters whose generous contributions have helped us develop the show. We honor them below.*

May there come a time when Indigenous children can look up on many stages and recognize themselves in the characters in many stories, then go home and write their own.

Lynne Taylor-Corbett and Shaun Taylor-Corbett