This long-awaited first collection by playwright and director Alanis King presents three exciting plays interconnected by themes of hope: spiritual (If Jesus Met Nanabush), personal (The Tommy Prince Story) and cultural (Born Buffalo).

When Jesus turns up at the Champion of Champions Pow-Wow, the first person he meets is Nanabush. Together they form an odd pair. Nanabush is earthy, irascible, fun-loving. Jesus is formal, introverted, a fish out of water. However, as they venture across the back roads, bars and bus depots of Turtle Island, the two will discover that they are not so different after all.
Merging Native and Western traditions, If Jesus Met Nanabush is a thought-provoking and often hilarious cosmological First Contact story.

The Tommy Prince Story an emotionally charged drama that brings to light the incredible life and times of the great Saulteaux warrior. Tommy Prince was Canada's most-decorated Indigenous war veteran, having been awarded a total of 11 medals in the Second World War and the Korean War. Although homeless when he died, he was honoured at his funeral by his province, his country and the governments of France, Italy and the United States. As Drew Hayden Taylor concluded: "This is Alanis at her finest."

The final play is the lively Born Buffalo which will take the reader back into the mystical age of the buffalo alongside fraternal twins magically transformed into bison.

Playwright and director Alanis King has quietly become a force in Native North American drama. Born into the Odawa Nation, Alanis became the first Aboriginal woman to graduate from the National Theatre School of Canada. She is a past Artistic Director of the Debajehmujig Theatre Group and the Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto. She was also Artistic Director at the Saskatchewan Native Theatre where she taught risk-prone inner city youth life skills through drama. King has also produced, toured, directed and developed a wide range of plays in many First Nation communities across the continent. To date her critically acclaimed plays also include Manitoulin Incident, Bye Bye Beneshe, Song of Hiawatha: An Anishnaabec Adaptation, Order of Good Cheer, Gegwah, Lovechild, Artshow, and Heartdwellers. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Alanis King's profile page