Award for Matthew Spangler’s new play

Our visiting Professor Matthew Spangler has co-written a play with Nina McConigley called Cowboys and East Indians. The play has received the Edgerton new play award, an annual, nationwide award that goes to a handful of new plays receiving their World Premiere.

Read more about Matthew Spangler here:

Cowboys and East Indians is co-adapted by Nina McConigley and Matthew Spangler from Nina’s award-winning collection of short stories by the same name. It follows the Sen family – the parents immigrated from India to Wyoming, where their daughter, Lucky, is born and raised – as they grapple with expectations, belonging, and the realities of rural life. It’s about family and trying to build community and a sense of identity in a place where you don’t see a reflection of yourself.

This play is not only a rare exploration of immigrant and second-generation experiences in rural communities, it subverts our image of the West. Especially at a time when many people have firm ideas about places and people, the laughter and heart in this play offer a fresh and unexpected perspective on the contemporary American West and the lives and communities that make up this region. –Leean Kim Torske, DCPA Director of Literary Programs.

Read more about Cowboys and East Indians here: