A Story of Voice and Vision: A Boy Named Salmon by Rachel McCauley ’26
A Boy Named Salmon, a play by Rachel McCauley ’26, wasn’t just a production—it’s a deeply personal, defiant, and resonant exploration of identity, belonging, and the discomfort of truth-telling in so-called progressive spaces. It was presented in Margot Tenney Theater on Thursday, May 8, and Friday, May 9, 2025.
This full-length play, written and directed by McCauley, marks her first full production—an ambitious leap after years of assisting, acting, and writing shorter works for classes. It’s a project shaped as much by her lived experience as a Black and Indigenous student in predominantly white institutions as it is by her academic work in Anthropology and Indigenous Studies.
“At its core, the play is about intersectionality,” McCauley said during an interview a few days before the opening. “It’s about being in white spaces, especially ones that call themselves liberal, and realizing how superficial that so-called progressivism can be.”
McCauley channeled these themes through the play’s central character, Salmon—a white teenager who discovers his great-grandmother was indigenous and forced into a residential school. The revelation pushes him into the grey area of identity politics and cultural disconnection, a space familiar to many urban Native people and those caught between what is inherited and what is lived.
“Salmon has to deal with the kind of struggle of, ‘Am I or aren't I?’” said McCauley. “I wanted to ask questions about what makes a person indigenous, and who gets to say so?”
McCauley points out that the methods used to determine tribal identity are flawed. Blood quantum, for instance, doesn’t take cultural affinity into account. The tribal governments, often closely aligned with the U.S. government, are an extension of colonization, McCauley added. “There are people who aren't necessarily Indigenous who can submit a bunch of family records that people of color don't necessarily have because of colonization.”
The story grapples with who gets to claim Indigenous identity, what it means to be disconnected from one’s heritage, the painful legacy of assimilation, and the appropriation that occurs. “It’s about people who are told they’re not Indigenous enough—or too Indigenous,” McCauley explained. “That struggle is something I’ve experienced. And I wanted to write something that gave voice to those of us who don’t fit into neat boxes.”
But the path to this play wasn’t straightforward. McCauley originally intended to write a work about the Aztec poet-king Nezahualcóyotl. It would have required a large, fully Indigenous cast—something difficult to realize at Bennington. Compounded by recovery from emergency gallbladder surgery, McCauley ultimately decided to pivot.
In collaboration with faculty mentors Jenny Rohn and Dina Janis, along with her advisor Shawtane Bowen, she found support through Platforms, a class that was indeed developed to give a platform to anyone in the college regardless of how many Drama courses they had taken an opportunity to express themselves theatrically.
“Anyone can propose a platform project, and often people do it in groups,” said Rohn. “We do value highly how this course has diversified our offerings and encouraged voices of marginalized students.”
The class offers mentorship and technical support. Usually design elements are minimal, and students and faculty meet weekly as a community with the other creators in the course.
“Platforms was a lifeline,” McCauley said. “It made it possible for me to tell this story.”
The play features a nine-person cast (mostly first-year, sophomores, and juniors) and production support from Mirka Porcayo ’26, who served as assistant director, stage manager, and overall technical lead. Porcayo, who has stage-managed two faculty productions, described the process as one of growth and emotional investment.
“Being here from the ground up has felt like raising something—like helping bring someone’s creation to life,” they said. “It’s been exciting, challenging, and personal.”
Porcayo grew up mostly in the Black and Latino community and experienced internalized bias, ignorance, and racism from both groups towards each other and themselves. They were particularly interested in the interplay between a Black character, Brockie, and a Latino character, JJ. JJ had initially been written as white, but while casting, both McCauley and Porcayo were presented with an interesting opportunity.
“I remember in the audition room when we were planning our callbacks, one student's audition stood out to me. I turned to Rachel and asked what she thought of casting a Latino man as JJ,” said Porcayo.
JJ uses the n-word in the script, and Porcayo had personal experience of Latino people doing so.
“This offered a look into the complexities of racism within communities of color, who contribute to oppression and take advantage of the system all while believing it is not a big deal,” said Porcayo. “Particularly with young Latino men, the use of the n-word is normalized and played off for jokes, despite our community having no right to use that word.”
“Throughout the process I had many talks with the actor playing JJ about our experiences hearing this word being said in our community and working with Rachel and the actor playing Brocckie on how to handle this with care,” said Porcayo. “After the show, I got a comment from another Latino about how much he appreciated the detail of JJ being the one to say it because such instances are what happens in the real world. Uncomfortable as they are, they are real and need to be acknowledged and taken accountability for, both by white people and our own.”
“It’s a call-out to our own communities, too,” they said. “The way the play challenges its audience to sit with discomfort—that's what makes it real. That’s what makes it matter.”
Despite the challenges—limited resources, self-doubt, a heavy creative and logistical lift—McCauley says the process has affirmed her path. “It’s been so hard, but so worth it,” she reflects. “This is my first full play. It’s my senior work. It’s a reflection of who I am and what I believe in.”
“I found Rachel’s vision for telling this story, that was so personal to her, was a perfect fit for the course. It’s exactly the type of project that we want to support,” said Rohn. “The topic is an important one, and Rachel‘s vision allowed a number of first-time actors to participate in the process. It has prompted amazing conversations, and in the audience, you could see the students who felt their story was being told. Amazing.”
The performance opened with a land acknowledgement, not words spoken by the descendents of colonization, but a dance by Chief Jonny Black Wolf of the Nipmuc Tribe. The play unfolded seamlessly for the capacity crowd. Many left with a greater understanding of what it’s like to live as a Black or Brown person in America and the challenges of reconciling our complex family histories with our current reality.
Looking ahead, McCauley hopes to continue creating work that amplifies underrepresented voices—especially those that are too often dismissed or simplified in mainstream narratives.