John Kaufman
Activist, Actor, Director, Playwright, Artistic Director
1947-1990
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Affiliations:
Seattle Children's Theatre, Kennedy Center
Seattle
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John was born June 24, 1947, in Lewiston, ID. He was one of seven children, the eldest, and the son. When his family moved from the Nez Perce reservation to Seattle, WA, John attended and graduated from Cleveland High School. In 1970, John became one of the first graduates of the University of Washington’s prestigious Professional Actor Training Program, earning him a Master of Fine Arts degree from U.W. After graduating from U.W., John co-formed the Red Earth Performing Arts Company, featuring productions of Native American works and performances.
His mother, Josephine Moody Kauffman, was a full-blooded Nez Perce Indian; his father, John Kauffman Sr., was of German ancestry. John saw a vital need to keep Indigenous storytelling in the cultural center of the Seattle theater scene, resisting erasure of Native American artistic contribution to the verging Seattle arts community. Over the years of the 70s and 80s, John worked tirelessly as an actor, director, playwright, and artistic director for some of Seattle's major theater companies, including the Empty Space Theatre (with which he was associate artistic director for several years), Seattle Rep (with which he was a company member), A Contemporary Theatre, Seattle Theatre Group, Pioneer Square Theatre, and the Seattle Children's Theatre. In 1972, John performed his one-person show Indian Experience at A Contemporary Theatre which later went to Broadway theaters at New York City and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 1987, John premiered According to Coyote at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which later toured internationally throughout 1988. The play offered a convergence between his identity as a Seattle trained theater artist and Native American Coyote stories, including several Nez Perce stories of his youth passed down from his grandfather. John was the Artistic Director of Honolulu Theatre for Youth from 1984-1990.
