William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.


Bill is an enrolled member of the Assiniboine Tribe, Fort Peck Tribes, Fort Peck Indian Agency, Poplar Montana. He has been widely recognized as a leading Native American playwright, having received, among other honors, the First Native Book Award for Drama fro m the University of Oklahoma; a National Endowment for the Arts Playwriting Fellowship; the Princess Grace Fellowship -Theatre/Playwriting (the first playwright to receive the award); and a Jerome Fellowship at the Minneapolis Playwright's Center.

He has acted with The Public Theater in New York and the University of Montana as well as on film and television. His plays (26 in all) have been presented by The Public Theater, Mutt Rep and the Ensemble Studio Theater in New York, the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, the Red Path Theater Company in Chicago, the New World Theater in Amherst, and at Modern Language Associates in Washington, D.C. The Star Quilter, a one-act play, was produced for the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) Radio Drama series in London, England in 1996. A Screenplay, The Pendleton Blanket, was selected for the Sundance Institute's Screenplay Labs in 1996.

Most recently a Lecturer at the University of New Mexico, Bill has been a Creative Writing Instructor at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM as well as a Lecturer at the University of Chicago; Northwest University; Truman College; Chicago cultural Center, Indiana State University; and the University of Washington. He is a Contributing Editor to The Native Playwright's Newsletter, and a Consultant for Disney's America, Walt DIsney Studios.

His publications include:



Bill started Wakiknabe Theatre Company as an outgrowth of the Native Playwright's Celebration he had founded at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and at the urging of his late wife, Diane, as a place for young Native talent to develop in the Theater Arts, as actors, writers, directors, designers and technicians.

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