Preview: Good Medicine: A Night of Live Native Stand-Up
By Ishmael Ali Khan Elias
Good Medicine: A Night of Live Native Stand-Up returns to the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) Saturday, September 16, after a sold-out 2022 show with over 330 people in attendance. The lineup features headliner Tatanka Means (Diné / Omaha / Oglala Lakota / Yankton), Siena East (Choctaw), Marc Yaffee, and host and producer Jackie Kelliiaa (Yerington Paiute / Washoe / Native Hawaiian).
About the performers:
Tatanka Means is an award-winning actor and comedian whose most recent work includes FX’s critically acclaimed series Reservation Dogs, the new epic Western trilogy Horizon by Kevin Costner as well as the Martin Scorsese epic Western crime drama, Killers of The Flower Moon. Means was recently named Entertainer of the Year by the National Indian Gaming Association and was voted Best Comedian in Albuquerque The Magazine’s Best of the City issue.
Siena East is a Los Angeles-based writer, comedian, and actress. She has written for MAX’s Clone High, played Jodi in Max’s The Sex Lives of College Girls, and performed at the Hollywood Improv. She also co-hosts the Full Hog Stand-Up Comedy Show in Los Angeles.
Marc Yaffee is a co-star of the historic Showtime special, Goin’ Native: The American Indian Comedy Slam, said to be the first ever all-Native American standup special. Yaffee is a founder and co-star of the Powwow Comedy Jam (2010 National Indian Gaming Association Entertainers of the Year). Additionally, he has been seen on PBS, FNX, The Latino Laugh Festival, and Comics Unleashed. He’s performed six times overseas for Armed Forces Entertainment and he won the Ventura Comedy Festival’s “Funniest Person Contest” in 2012.
Jackie Keliiaa is an Oakland-based comedian, writer, actor, and producer. She’s featured in one of the Best Books of 2021 by NPR and Esquire, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy. Keliiaa has been featured on Comedy Central, Team Coco, Netflix, and IllumiNative’s 25 Native American Comedians to Follow. She wrote for the web series You’re Welcome America and has been featured in a variety of publications including Vulture, Uproxx, LA Times and KQED among others. Keliiaa was also featured on the First Nations Comedy Experience, streaming on Amazon Prime, and produces Good Medicine Comedy, which has raised over $11,000 for charitable causes. She is a regular at Bay Area venues and has performed at San Francisco SketchFest, Punch Line San Francisco, and Cobb’s Comedy Club.
About the venue:
The show will be held on The Great Lawn, a part of the OMCA terraced gardens, which provide a perfect lakeside setting to see Native comedy under the stars and enjoy good community, food, and drink. Guests are encouraged to bring a blanket or a low chair.
Tickets available at: https://museumca.org/event/good-medicine-a-night-of-live-native-stand-up/
