Indigenous Voices Take Center Stage in New Musical Inspired by Oak Flat Controversy

For playwright and composer Cordelia Zars, a chance encounter with a story would become an enduring passion that continues to haunt her to this day. It began while she was working as a reporter and producer for the podcast The Dirtbag Diaries and stumbled upon an unfolding dispute over a proposed copper mine in Oak Flat, Arizona, which pitted the preservation of sacred land against the survival of a rural town.

"We do episodes called 'Endangered Spaces,' and this came on my radar because somebody pitched us the story and I picked it up," Zars says. "This story was exciting because it spoke to ideological riffs at the heart of the divisions in our country."

Zars was committed to exploring the complexities of the issue, which eventually led to the creation of her original musical, We're Still Here, produced by her Boulder-based Empathy Theatre Project. Its workshop-performance premiere will take place at the Dairy Arts Center from Friday, November 24, to Sunday, December 3. "I wanted to explore multiple sides of a very complicated issue and try to step away from our tendency to create black-and-white situations — 'These people are right and these people are wrong,'" Zars explains. "I have my personal beliefs about the mine and what should happen, but for the purpose of the musical, we really wanted to tell multiple sides of this story with equality, humanity, and equal dignity, which is not something we are great at as Americans."
Zars and Mesquakie Tribal Elder Alex Walker Jr. collaborated on the script, which is based on events in Oak Flat and Walker's childhood in Iowa. We're Still Here tells the tale of two young people, Maggie and Zander, who find themselves on opposing sides of a contentious battle over a proposed copper mine in Temple, Iowa, on the Outagamihaki holy land. Maggie is the daughter of a mining family who is working to rally her hometown behind the new mine, which she believes would rescue Temple from economic despair. Meanwhile, Zander helps his family protest the mine, which they believe would destroy one of the oldest religions on earth.

As these young leaders fight for their homes, they become bitter political adversaries. However, as the fight for the holy land collides with the community's hopes for economic recovery in a struggling rural town, the two rivals form an unlikely relationship.

"Alex and I like to describe our show as Oak Flat meets Romeo and Juliet," Zars says. "Everybody loves a good love story, so we wanted there to be these two warring families — one is a mining family and one is an Indigenous family — who are separated by this river, which is actually based on Alex's homeland, the Iowa River, which runs through his native settlement. ... Maggie and Zander are both painters. Although they're political enemies in this fight against the mine, they realize that they have this thing in common that brings them together, because they both go to the river to watercolor."

While Zars is the first to admit it's not an entirely original story, the narrative was perfectly suited to the years of research, interviews and site visits she conducted in Oak Flat, Arizona. "It's not a new idea — warring families brought together by the youth that are idealistic, romantic, young and naive," she says. "They believe it's possible to rise above, find compromise and bring our community together, which is beautiful, but also unrealistic. The setup is that they are trying to make this metaphorical bridge across the river. Without giving away the ending, I would say our main characters are more idealistic than what is able to actually happen in the world."

When Zars was first thinking about writing the musical, she thought it would be closely based on the facts she reported in 2021, and that she would develop the piece with an Apache partner from Oak Flat. But she quickly decided against that approach.

"It just wasn't feasible, because I'm not there," Zars admits. "I don't live there; my theater company is in Boulder, obviously, and the people at Oak Flat are full-time fighting the mine. They don’t have all this time to dedicate to collaborating on a musical with me, because they are literally in this fight right now. So I started working with [Walker]. ... We met recently at a ceremony because we both have a mutual friend who's a medicine man in Denver. It wasn't even on my mind to collaborate until I had known him for like a year, and then I was asking him all of this advice about the musical and how to go about this process. Around 2022, we had this phone call where we decided to write it together."
Collaborating closely with Walker, they crafted a story that blends Indigenous and musical-theater traditions. Although much of the script is inspired by interviews Zars conducted in Oak Flat — in fact, a good deal of the dialogue is drawn from interview transcripts with residents — the creators decided to take the story out of Arizona and base it around the spiritual traditions that Walker grew up with as a Mesquakie in Iowa. It's a cross-cultural collaboration that captures the essence of a critical issue while offering multiple perspectives on equality, humanity and dignity.

"We're Still Here is honestly sort of unlike anything else that exists in musical theater that I know of," Zars says. "It is this fusion of Mesquakie traditional prayer, music and medicine songs mixed with the musical style I have, which is sort of a folky, musical-theater mashup."

Zars describes rehearsal with the fourteen-person cast as an experiment in what it means to participate in a democracy. "It's easier to stay in your bubble, with your people who make you feel good about your beliefs, and not try to interact with other cultures, because it's freaking hard," she says. "It's messy and it brings up conflict. All of us in this space are engaging in that process, and of course, it brings up challenges, but all of us are dedicated to singing, breathing and moving through these difficult issues in our country in a very embodied, somatic and empathetic way."

"Every single person in this cast comes from a diverse place," adds Aria Summer Wallace, who plays Zander's sister, Ariel. "There are a lot of unique ways of life and upbringings in our cast, which is unlike any other theater production I've been involved in as an actor or singer. From the very beginning of the rehearsal process, they're taking care to make sure that this project is culturally aware. I feel like a lot of times theater productions are very straightforward and to the point — 'This is a job' type of thing — but this has been so much more. Yes, we are developing this piece, but we're also developing ourselves as people and as creators throughout this process, which is wonderful."

This process has also been a way for Wallace to reconnect with her roots. She is of Cherokee descent but was not raised traditionally. "So for me, this research has been very personal, and kind of like a rediscovery of my own Native heritage," she says. 

In a time of divisive rhetoric about climate change and resource extraction, We're Still Here is a poignant reminder of our shared humanity. It brings together the voices of Indigenous communities, shedding light on the struggles they face while fostering a sense of understanding across political and cultural divides.

"I think everyone could benefit from seeing this production — people of all cultures," Wallace says. "It's long overdue that Indigenous voices be amplified, especially in theater, and this piece also offers a perspective of love and unity while raising awareness about what Indigenous lives are experiencing every day, both in Oak Flat and across the country. Cordelia and Alex have created a glimpse into both Indigenous culture and small-town poverty. They are similar issues, and at the end of the day, we are more alike than we realize."

We're Still Here opens Friday, November 24, and runs through Sunday, December 3, at the Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder. Get tickets at empathytheatreproject.org.