About this Artist

DeLanna Studi is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and has more than twenty-five years of experience as a performer, storyteller, educator, facilitator, advocate, and activist. Her theatre credits include the first national Broadway tour of the Tony Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning play August: Osage County; off-Broadway’s Gloria: A Life (Daryl Roth Theatre); Informed Consent (the Duke on 42nd Street); and regional theatres (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage, Cornerstone, and Indiana Repertory Theatre). DeLanna originated roles in more than eighteen world premieres, including fourteen Native productions. A pivotal moment in her career was writing and performing And So We Walked: An Artist’s Journey Along the Trail of Tears, which retraced her family’s footsteps along the Trail of Tears with her father. And So We Walked has been produced off-Broadway, throughout the country, and was recorded for Audible. In film and television, DeLanna stars in the Peabody Award–winning Edge of America, Hallmark’s Dreamkeeper, Goliath, Shameless, and General Hospital. She is a 2022 USA Fellow and a recipient of the Butcher Scholar Award, a MAP Fund Grant, a Cherokee Preservation Grant, and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Fund. In 2026, DeLanna was the first Native playwright to be nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Since 2007, she has served as chair of the SAG-AFTRA National Native Americans Committee.