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Dust Eaters

"Jensen's most moving, emotionally charged drama yet."

Deseret News

  • Full Length Play
  • Drama
  • 105 minutes

  • Target Audience: Teen (Age 14 - 18), Adult
  • Set Requirements: Unit Set/Multiple Settings

  • Performance Group:
  • Community Theatre, College Theatre / Student

  • Accolades:
  • Nominee! Steinberg New Play Award for Best New Play Produced Outside New York
Dust Eaters is an intimate look at two families, one white, one Native American, living side by side in the west desert of Utah. The play covers a total of seven generations, from 1877 to the present. Each scene -- a mini-drama of its own -- takes place 20 years later than the one before, all in the same small house. 

We follow the life of Albertine who begins as a defiant 10-year-old Goshute girl living with a white family on a ranch next to her tribe's ancestral land. We trace the interdependence and resentment, the love and denial of the two families. In the end Albertine's great-grandchildren are grappling with a decision to store high-level nuclear waste on their reservation. 

The play is a chamber history that defines the past through everyday, intimate human detail and looks at the assumptions behind both cultural points of view. It presents history as we see our own personal history, as a life lived in the wake of seminal events. 

Supported by the National Theatre Artist Residency Program, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Nominated by the American Theatre Critics Association for the Steinberg New Play Award for best new play produced outside New York. 

REVIEWS:

"Jensen's most moving, emotionally charged drama yet."

Desert News

"A wonderful combination of sharply honed dialogue with Native American myth and ritual."

The Salt Lake Tribune

"Dust Eaters goes to the very heart of White/Native American relations, of past and present injustices, of white privilege and power, and of environmental racism."

Catalyst

  • Casting: 2M, 2F
  • Casting Attributes: Expandable casting, Minority casting

Name Price
Dust Eaters Script Order Now

Dust Eaters is an intimate look at two families, one white, one Native American, living side by side in the west desert of Utah. The play covers a total of seven generations, from 1877 to the present. Each sceneea mini-drama of its ownetakes place 20 years later than the one before, all in the same small house. We follow the life of Albertine who begins as a defiant 10-year-old Goshute girl living with a white family on a ranch next to her tribees ancestral land. We trace the interdependence and resentment, the love and denial of the two families. In the end Albertinees great-grandchildren are grappling with a decision to store high-level nuclear waste on their reservation. The play is a chamber history that defines the past through everyday, intimate human detail and looks at the assumptions behind both cultural points of view. It presents history as we see our own personal history, as a life lived in the wake of seminal events. Supported by the National Theatre Artist Residency Program, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Nominated by the American Theatre Critics Association for the Steinberg New Play Award for best new play produced outside New York. One set. Approximate running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

$19.95