The second installment of Let’s Talk: Politics features five NHP alumni, including Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Jayne Deely, Ty Defoe, Jessie Dickey, and DeLanna Studi.
Mashuq Mushtaq Deen
Mashuq Mushtaq Deen is a playwright and essayist interested in the careful devastation of his audience. Residencies and awards have brought him to diverse national and international geographies, and he's curious about the ways those varied landscapes contribute to our values and to our divisions. The changing landscape of age and the way it forms our subjective realities is also of particular interest. He often writes in relief, often from perspectives diametrically opposed from his own, and with a focus on compassion and forgiveness in impossible situations. His award-winning work has tackled gender, state-sponsored violence, mathematics, apocalyptic futures, as well as surreal and absurdist theatrical forms. He prioritizes process over product, and believes that the self is one of the most important mediums that the artist works with. (mashuqmushtaqdeen.com)
Ty Defoe
Ty Defoe (giizhig) (him, we, ty) is a proud citizen of the Oneida Nation and Anishinaabe Tribe, as well as a writer and interdisciplinary artist. As a sovereign storyteller and trickster, Ty has been honored with fellowships and awards, including the Robert Rauschenberg, MacDowell, Sundance, First People’s Fund, and Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellowships, as well as recognition for Jonathan Larson, Grammy, and Helen Merrill Playwriting Awards. Ty is the author of Firebird Tattoo, featured in the Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays for the Stage, published by Bloomsbury. Ty’s work spans rural communities, Broadway productions, and the metaverse, all while cultivating relationships for Indigenous and decolonial futures. He is a co-founder of Indigenous Direction, member of All My Relations Collective, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, and a writer-in-residence at PACE. Ty loves space and mood rings.
Jayne Deely
Jayne Deely (they/them) is a Queens-born, Puerto Rican, queer playwright and performer. Their work includes Hiraeth, or when Pluto was a planet, I never asked for a gofundme, Walter Mercado Presents: A Queer Puerto Rican (Not Just) Christmxs Spectacular, unqle play, and 30 Seconds. Their plays have been developed with Seattle Public Theatre, the New Harmony Project, Breaking the Binary, Fresh Ground Pepper, American Stage, Renaissance Theaterworks, and others. They are currently under commission with a Sloan grant from EST. As a performer, they’ve worked with BRAVA, Berkeley Rep, Aurora Theatre, and TheatreWorks. Jayne is a proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and the Dramatists Guild, and is based in Queens, NY. Next up: Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival (October ’25), Indy Playfest, (November ’25), Jungle Theatre Greenhouse Reading Series (January ’26). The world premiere of I never asked for a gofundme will be produced by Actor’s Express in Atlanta in October 2026. MFA, IU Bloomington.
Jessie Dickey
Jessie Dickey is most known for her award-winning play The Amish Project, which premiered Off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and has since been produced around the country. Other theatrical premieres have included Galileo’s Daughter (Remy Bumppo, Chicago), Nan and the Lower Body (TheatreWorks, Palo Alto, CA), The Convent (Rising Phoenix and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, New York City), The Rembrandt (Steppenwolf, Chicago), Charles Ives Take Me Home (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, New York City), and Row After Row (Women’s Project, New York City). She’s won some prizes for her plays (including the Stavis Award, the Los Angeles Ovation Award, the Barrymore, the Helen Hayes, the CAPPIE)-- and she’s been nominated for a few more (including a finalist for the Weissberger Award, a couple Susan Blackburns, the Playwrights of New York Fellowship, among others). She was also listed by nytheatre.com as a playwright who should have been nominated for the Pulitzer, which wasn’t an award but really felt like one. She is a proud alum of the prestigious New Dramatists. Alongside theater, Jessie also works in other mediums-- including a book with her sister Danielle Neff called Sistering: The Art of Holding Close and Letting Go (published by Pilgrim Press). In television and film, Jessie has written or developed for Apple TV, Netflix, ABC, Searchlight, and Paramount TV. Jessie currently divides her time between Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and the south of France.
DeLanna Studi
DeLanna Studi (Cherokee Nation) Theater credits: the First National Broadway Tour of Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play August: Osage County, Off-Broadway’s Gloria: A Life, Informed Consent, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage, Indiana Repertory Theater, and Geva. Her first play, And So We Walked: Along the Trail of Tears, retells her journey retracing her family’s footsteps along the Trail of Tears with her father. Its Off-Broadway debut at Minetta Lane was recorded for Audible. Film/Television credits: the Peabody Award-winning Edge of America, Dreamkeeper, Goliath, Shameless, General Hospital, Reservation Dogs, and Disney’s The Roof. She is the Artistic Director of Native Voices, the only Equity theatre in the country dedicated to developing and producing new play by Native playwrights. DeLanna is a 2022 United States Artists Fellow, an Advance Gender Equality in the Arts Legacy Playwright Grant Recipient, and a Playwright in Residence at Geva Theatre.