William Yellow Robe Jr.
William Stanley Yellow Robe Jr., Assiniboine playwright, actor, director and teacher, died in Bangor, Maine, on July 19, 2021.
He was born Feb. 4, 1960, and raised on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Wolf Point. He attended reservation schools and was encouraged early by one of his teachers to become a writer.
Becoming a playwright meant leaving the reservation. He attended the University of Montana in Missoula, honing his writing and acting skills, but encountering frustration when directors would cast him only in “Indian” roles, or not at all. He began to write his own plays, using the art form to tell stories of contemporary Native American people.
He worked with other young Native American writers and actors all over the country in the budding Native American theatre movement of the 1980s. He was a member of La Mama Theater in New York, founded Wakiknabe Intertribal Theatre Company in Albuquerque, N.M., and became an advisor to Red Eagle Soaring Youth Theatre in Seattle, Wash.
He was recognized early in his career as a recipient of a Princess Grace Fellowship and a Jerome Fellowship. He taught theatre and playwriting at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M. Over the years, he was invited to lecture and teach at tribal colleges, Ivy League schools and state universities. Recently, he was a member of the Creative Writing faculty of the University of Montana, and a lecturer and Libra Professor at the University of Maine.
He wrote over 70 plays, some of which are published in his three volumes of work: Where the Pavement Ends, Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers and Other Untold stories and Restless Spirits. His plays have been produced around the United States and in Europe, including venues such as AmerLinda, Inc. and The Public Theatre in New York, Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, Minn., Trinity Repertory Theatre in Providence, R.I., the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., and at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, Calif.
In December 2006, he married Jeanne Domek in South Dakota. Their time together was very happy, favorite activities included dog walks on the beach at New London, evenings of theater or movies and attending summer powwows hosted by Narragansett, Wampanoag and Pequot communities. Together, they
