The Tulsa Awards for Theatre Excellence or TATE Awards are given out annually by the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

Studi was born in 1947 in the small rural town in northwestern Oklahoma of Nofire Hollow. Studi spoke only Cherokee until he was five years old. Educated at the Chilocco Indian Boarding, where he graduated high school, Studi learned English, but never forgot how to speak the Cherokee language.

After high school, Studi joined the US Army. He served one tour in Vietnam with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta. After an honorable military discharge, he came back to this country at the time the American Indian Movement was on the rise. He joined AIM and took part in the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington in late 1972. During the takeover of Wounded Knee, Studi was there and ended up being arrested.

After Wounded Knee, Studi decided to funnel his energies to assisting his tribe, the Cherokee Nation. He co-founded the Cherokee Phoenix, a newspaper that served the citizens of the Cherokee Nation that still publishes.

He began his acting career in Tulsa, where he was cast in the American Indian Theatre Company's 1984 production of "Black Elk Speaks." He performed at the Tulsa PAC's Chapman Music Hall, along with actors Will Sampson and David Carradine.


Among his many films he has starred in are: "Powwow Highway," "Dances with Wolves," "Geronimo" and "Last of the Mohicans."

The awards ceremony will be held in Tulsa at the at the Cascia Hall PAC, 2525 South Yorktown Avenue.
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