Next Generation: Mikennah Oleson
By Max Hofer
Staff Writer
Some stories will be hard to tell. But it’s at the intersection of writing and performance where actor/playwright and Augustana University student Mikennah Oleson finds the courage to share hers.
Mikennah Oleson accepts the award for Best Play or Musical — Collegiate alongside her fellow cast and crew of Augustana University’s This is My Body, for which she was nominated for Best Performer — Collegiate in July 2024. (Photo Credit: Rachel Winters)
“’If the world was ending in an hour, where would you want to be?’ I asked myself that question, and, as sappy as it is, the answer was with my partner,” Oleson expressed. “Then I thought, ‘That's a story that I can tell.’”
It’s the answer to her question that sparked the idea for her most recent play, Aftermath. The story follows the lives of five normal people on a day like any other, but with one small catch — the world is going to end in an hour.
“The whole point of the story is to see people grow, change and develop,” Oleson said. “At the end, they find out that they’re going to continue – that they’ll get to take those lessons and move on.”
While the story itself is fictional, it incorporates elements and themes drawn from the playwright’s personal experiences, from navigating relationships to finding her vocation.
“I'm from Hill City, S.D., which is a town of less than 800 people,” she said. “We didn't have a plethora of artistic endeavors.” It wasn’t until Oleson got to high school where she found herself drawn to language and performing arts.
“We had a theatre program, and we did a fall play, then a one-act in the Spring One-Act Competition, and I loved it,” she recalled. “I enjoyed the art that was created there, and I also really found myself in English classes.”
Her English teacher doubled as her theatre director. She credits him for fostering her passion for writing and performance. After graduation, Oleson planned to attend college in northern South Dakota. After sharing this plan with her teacher, he suggested a different path.
Mikennah Oleson performs as one of the Wyrd Sisters in Augustana University’s fall 2024 production of Macbeth.
“’If my daughter didn't go to GCU, she would have gone to Augustana. That's where you need to be,’” he told Oleson. “I remember being so taken by the fact that one of my teachers cared enough about me to tell me that there was a better place for me.”
Inspired, she found herself enrolled at Augustana University, where she spent the next three years pursuing an English and secondary education double major and a theatre minor, with an emphasis in creative writing.
“He saw something that I couldn’t, and he made sure I knew it before I missed out on an opportunity,” the young playwright said. “I'm so thankful for that, because I've met so many wonderful people who I can't imagine my life without.”
People who continued fostering Oleson’s spark.
“Augustana talks a lot about your vocation — which is what I feel as though I've been put on the earth to do,” she said. “My vocation has always existed in the performance arts. I've always felt like that. It's like an itch you can't scratch.”
In her sophomore year, Oleson wrote her first one-act play and submitted it in the university’s Claire Donaldson New Play Festival.
“Students can submit 10-minute plays, our professors look them over and we perform a couple of them,” Olesen said. “I wrote a play in, like, a night, and then didn't finish it. I came back and finished it a week later, and I was like, ‘Okay, I'm just going to submit this.’”
Not long after submitting, Olseson received some exciting news — her play was selected.
“This memory is so vivid, because I was overcome with this incredibly surreal feeling.” But it wasn’t until seeing her production, titled The Date, where the sparks flew. “Afterwards, I went up to my professor and told her, ‘I want to do this for the rest of my life.’”
Jackson Heiberger & India Johnson perform in Mikennah Oleson’s Aftermath, as part of the Premiere Playhouse’s 2025 Premiere Premieres event.
This marked a huge milestone in the young playwright’s career and only fueled her passion for bold storytelling. Her most recent play, Aftermath, was selected for The Premiere Playhouse’s annual Premiere Premieres, where it was met with positive reception. “It was a crazy honor to be selected.”
She later submitted it to the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, where it was selected as a regional nominee for the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play. “I also ugly-cried then,” Oleson laughed. “I got to take it down there with a bunch of people from Augustana and receive feedback from a bunch of real-life playwrights — some of whom I'd actually read their works. It was really scary for a minute.”
Most recently, the rights to Aftermath were bought by the University of Minnesota - Morris and will be a part of their 2025-26 season. In the meantime, Oleson plans to finish her education at Augustana. She aims to apply for distinction in the university’s English department by writing a new play.
“It’s currently set to be a modern-but-not-modern twist on Pinocchio set in the 1930s Appalachian Mountains,” she teased. “That is something that intrigues me like nothing else right now.”
They say that the future isn’t written, but with Oleson’s hand on the pen, it promises to be bold, original and exciting.
“I was once told that some stories will be hard to tell. Sometimes you will never be able to tell those stories in the state you are in now. But, with who we are and what we do and what artists live on, there will always be more, and you will find them anywhere. Once you have it, do not be afraid of it.”