The ever-popular trope of vengeful Native spirits is a tale as old as America. Build a house on an Indian burial ground, and the genocidal history buried within the American psyche does the rest of the work for you. Making its world premiere at the Santa Fe Playhouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from August 6 through August 30, P.C. Verrone’s Bad Medicine moves those bones from the backyard to a museum, which is where far too many Native ancestors actually remain.
Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990, requiring museums and universities to inventory their collections and return Native ancestors to their communities. Thirty-six years later, institutions have completed the process for only about half of the remains they reported. As recently as June, a U.S. senator was still writing to 15 museums and universities demanding to know what was taking so long. Verrone sets his horror comedy inside one of those institutions, where the dead have every reason to be restless and vengeful.
The Synopsis:
“Native American academics Aislin and Cesar are excited to settle into their new home in Proctor, Massachusetts. Even their nosy white neighbors seem nice enough. But as Aislin becomes aware of strange occurrences surrounding her job at the Natural History Museum, she starts to wonder if there might be something insidious beneath the sleepy town. Aislin must overcome deep insecurities around her identity to uncover the town’s terrifying secrets.”
The museum gives the play’s horror a setting tied to a real history of holding Native ancestors and cultural belongings. Aislin knows something’s wrong, but her insecurities make it harder to trust herself when everyone around her dismisses what she’s experiencing. As the town protects its secrets, she begins to uncover the violence hidden behind the authority of the museum and academia.
Bad Medicine takes a tired horror trope and gives it a sharper target. The fear doesn’t come from Native spirits seeking revenge, but from the people who built careers and communities around what was stolen.
Verrone leaves Proctor crowded with secrets, but the question at the center of the play is simple: how long can a town bury the truth before it starts pushing its way back to the surface?
Leading the cast is Tara Moses (Seminole and Mvskoke), who stars as Aislin. Moses is also an award-winning playwright and director. She was the first Native playwright selected for a Rolling World Premiere by the National New Play Network. Her play Haunted, another Indigenous horror comedy, was staged in Boston, Los Angeles, and Cleveland between 2025 and spring 2026. Kholan Studi, who plays Cesar Alvarez, is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. His credits include Between Two Knees, They Don’t Talk Back, Where the Summit Meets the Stars, and Paramount+’s Tulsa King. The rest of the company includes Heather Michele Lawler, Russell Rietmann, Natalie Benally, Elise Falanga, Justin Giehm, and Ali Esmeralda Marin.
Verrone has developed work with La Jolla Playhouse, Primary Stages, and Native Voices, among others, and “Bad Medicine” was a finalist for the 2025 Venturous Playwriting Fellowship. A Native Voices production of Bad Medicine in Los Angeles is expected to follow the Santa Fe run. His debut novel, “Rabbit, Fox, Tar,” was released in June.
The Playhouse has posted an unusually specific content advisory, and it’s worth reviewing before deciding to buy tickets. The play depicts violence against Indigenous people, including Indigenous women, and portrays the appropriation of Indigenous cultural and spiritual practices. It contains strong language, snake imagery, stage blood, staged intimacy, knife violence, and references to forced pregnancy and reproductive coercion. The theater says these elements are central to the play’s dramaturgy and that a qualified professional staged all intimacy and combat. The advisory also lists three support resources: the StrongHearts Native Helpline, the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, and the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, which is based in New Mexico.
The show runs two hours with a 15-minute intermission at The Santa Fe Playhouse at 142 East De Vargas Street. Previews on August 6 and 7 are pay what you will, and opening night is Saturday, August 8 at 7:30 p.m. Performances continue Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m., with no matinee on opening day. Tickets run $15 to $80; rush tickets drop to $10 after opening, and there’s an ASL-interpreted matinee on August 22.
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