Although he fills many roles -- director, producer, screenwriter, editor, teacher, and mentor -- Hanay Geiogamah is mainly recognized as the most important Native American playwright of the late twentieth century. In his plays Geiogamah strives to portray contemporary American Indian life for both Indians and non-Indians.

Geiogamah was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, on 22 June 1945 to Lola Clark, of Irish and Delaware Indian descent, and Claude Geiogamah, a Kiowa. He grew up in nearby Anadarko and attended Fort Sill Indian School near Lawton and Chilocco Indian School near Newkirk, Oklahoma. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Geiogamah has positive memories of his boarding-school experiences. The educators at the school encouraged cultural exchange among the students, and Geiogamah learned about his own Kiowa heritage as well as those of the thirty-eight other Oklahoma tribes. In an unpublished 1996 interview he recalled that he and his friends acted out "life shows": "Since...