Anya Martin

Anya Martin was the Founding Artistic Director of Hiawatha Project as well as the lead playwright, director and co-producer for almost 15 years.

Hiawatha Project Mission and Artistic Statements

Hiawatha Project created original performances exploring specific social questions through myth, free association, and movement. The company connected true stories and divergent communities through impactful and revelatory theatrical works.

Hiawatha Project explored the experiences of living in Pittsburgh and connected these experiences to regional, national, and global social questions.  In this way, we illuminated human connections by discovering the universal and infinite in the ordinary and specific.

Hiawatha Project was an original theatre creation and producing company that conceived, developed and premiered performances that:

• Engaged with the needs of a specific community and/or audience
• Interacted directly in real-time with audiences
• Utilized specific artists and specific spaces
• Invigorated with real-time physical feats
• Suspended belief beyond the narrative
• Confronted  limited resources with limitless imagination

Hiawatha Project Awards and Distinctions

Through Anya’s advancement efforts Hiawatha Project proudly received foundational support from the AER Capacity Building, The August Wilson Center Legacy Fund, August Wilson Center Programming Fund, Brooks Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, Heinz Small Arts Initiative, The McKinney Foundation, Off The Wall Foundation, Opportunity Fund, The Sprout Fund, PA Council on the Arts, and The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Hiawatha’s show “Camino” was also presented as a part of “TENACITY: Sprout’s 10th Anniversary Retrospective, and was presented as an installation as a part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival Juried Show in 2013.  Hiawatha Project’s “JH: Mechanics of a Legend” was chosen to be presented as a part of the New Hazlett Theatre CSA Series in 2015, and in 2017 “JH Mechanics of a Legend” won a prestigious August Wilson Programming Grant.  Hiawatha Project’s “Buyant Sea” won the 2024 Theatre for Young Audiences/USA Artistic Innovation Award.

Brief Company History

The company began as a collaboration between Founding Artistic Director Anya Martin and scenic designer Michelle Carello, and their mutual passion to create relevant original theatre through an innovative development process connecting professional artists with community members. Since 2012 the company was led by Founding Artistic Director,  Anya Martin, and Associate Artistic Producer, Heather Irwin.  Hiawatha Project was named out of an awareness and reverent respect for the peoples and stories before us.  Hiawatha was a renowned storyteller, peacemaker, and spiritual leader with the Hodinöhšönih (hoe-den-ah-show-nee) or Six Nations.  A founding leader of the Hodinöhšönih comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga and Tuscarora, he is believed to have lived from 1525 – 1595.  Hiawatha Project was based in Pittsburgh PA, and reverently acknowledged that the land where the company created work was unjustly taken from the Hodinöhšönih.  An Onödowaga or Seneca word for Pittsburgh means “between two rivers.”  Hiawatha strived to be an artistic bridge in this city of rivers, and to connect divergent communities through impactful and revelatory theatrical works.The company was also named out of Anya’s deep admiration for the one-act plays of Thornton Wilder.  The play, “Pullman Car Hiawatha” displays Wilder’s skill and love for allowing the vast universe to spill out of the seemingly ordinary and mundane. The company strived to explore the experiences of living in Pittsburgh, and to connect these experiences to regional, national, and global social questions.