She cut her teeth with longtime University of Oregon theater professor John Schmor. She wrote for and starred in a groundbreaking Native American sitcom, opposite Ed Helms. She is redefining roles and smashing stereotypes for Native women in TV and film and — make no mistake about it — she is absolutely living her best life.

Alum Jana Schmieding, Lakota comedian-actor-writer, has made the journey from struggling artist to success story and vocal champion of Natives in film, TV and comedy. She’ll share what she has learned along the way as keynote speaker for the university’s 148th commencement ceremony, June 16 at Autzen Stadium.

“I have amazing memories of the U of O – I went to college on a diversity-building scholarship, I am the poster child for DEI,” Schmieding said, laughing. “Being a student there created the person that I am and helped me build the foundation of how I approach my work now, which is to really hone in on the experiences that I want to have in my life and create those experiences for myself.”

Spring commencement exercises will be held June 15-16 and times and locations for all ceremonies can be found on the commencement website. There’s also information about ordering regalia, volunteering, parking, making travel plans for family and more.

Schmieding, in fact, has her own commencement plans in addition to her keynote address: she’ll host a fry bread feed for the university’s Native organizations.

“I just want to be around as many Native people as I can while I’m home,” said Schmieding ’05, reached recently while on set in Edmonton, Canada. In her first feature film role (and first with a touch of romance), she plays a hockey mom who makes sparks with the coach in “Smudge the Blades,” an Indigenous hockey movie and dark comedy yet to be scheduled for distribution.

When not shooting or navigating Edmonton’s snow-covered streets, Schmieding was hunkered down in her Airbnb, writing the script for an animated show in development. She’s also working on her own feature film and has numerous “side hustles” — her words — going in TV, film and other media. The travel is tiresome and she misses her cats, but you won’t hear her complain.

“Being able to make a living as a writer and actor, it’s the dream for me,” Schmieding said. “I’m not wealthy by any means but I am rich in opportunity, to be doing what I love. And that, to me, is the wealthiest feeling in the world. I don’t want for much right now.”

The turning point in Schmieding’s career was “Rutherford Falls.” The TV sitcom streamed on Peacock in 2021 and 2022, starring Helms and Schmieding as lifelong friends navigating issues of Indigeneity, colonialism and historical narratives in a small northeastern town.

The Rotten Tomatoes movie website gave the series a 94 out of 100. Vulture magazine said the sitcom “skillfully braids discussions of serious sociocultural issues with character-based comedy in ways that seem neither forced nor overly didactic.” The A.V. Club website gave “Rutherford Falls” an “A-”, praising its “vibrant, heartwarming spirit.”

Schmieding relished the collaboration with Helms — “He’s a good man, a kind, gentle teacher,” she said, “and one of the most brilliant comedic minds of our time.” And she was thrilled to be pulled from among the show’s writers to co-star.

But most satisfying for her was the sitcom’s union of twin passions that Schmieding had been trying to consolidate since college, if not her entire life: cultural awareness and the arts.

Schmieding grew up in Canby, raised in the traditional ways of the Cheyenne River Lakota, a South Dakota tribe that the U.S. government forced onto a reservation after wars in the 1870s. She spent summers in Eugene and attended powwows across Oregon with parents and grandparents who were pillars in the Native community.

She was brought up not just to honor her Native heritage but to raise awareness of her culture in a state that, she said, prides itself on its colonial history. She stood in front of her elementary school classes in regalia, explaining her tribe’s beliefs. Said Schmieding: “Awareness means safety — humanizing ourselves to the rest of the world.”

Her heritage, grades and student involvement earned her a full scholarship to the UO through the Office of Multicultural Affairs, now the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence. Schmieding quickly immersed herself in cultural student groups including the Native American Student Union and she went on to be a leader with the multicultural center. She has fond memories of hanging out at the Many Nations Longhouse back when it was just a modest 1970s modular unit.

While championing awareness of Native issues outside the classroom, Schmieding explored her love of acting inside it, as a theater arts major. She learned how to read and write scripts, how to watch theater. She wrote her first solo show, about an Indian woman in a museum exploring her identity.

And she found her calling as a comedian, studying with John Schmor, an associate professor in the theater department.

Schmor, who taught in the department for 25 years until his retirement in 2024, was a lover of uncommon acting methods who helped Schmieding tap her vulnerability and use it for comedy.

The definitive example was the dreaded “ring of fire” exercise. Class would meet at midnight in a university theater; seated in a circle on stage, each student in turn entered the middle and tried to make the others laugh — and not a sympathy laugh, mind you, a real one. No leaving the middle until everyone laughed simultaneously; some toiled there for an hour.

“You’re really humbled by the act of trying to make people laugh,” Schmieding said. “The way you find the laugh is always a surprise. If you push too hard, you have to drop all of your plans, and then you’re just a bare-bones human being succumbing to this terrifying plight — and that is the root of comedy. Absolute bare bones vulnerability. When you get that eruption of laughter, it’s the most healing feeling of relief.”

Schmieding realized that creating that eruption of laughter was the life for her, so after college she moved to New York City to hone her comedy skills while teaching in the Bronx. She performed, directed and collaborated on improv, sketch and solo comedy shows in the Big Apple for 10 years before moving to Los Angeles.

As she developed as a writer-actor, Schmieding looked for ways to blend in cultural awareness of Native peoples. But she butted up against a hard truth: Hollywood wasn’t interested in portraying Natives, and especially Native women, as anything other than stereotypically subordinate vehicles for the white man’s journey.

“Rutherford Falls” cast member Kimberly Norris-Guerrero once told Schmieding that when she was coming up as a young Native actor, the expectation was “you need to be able to take a punch or have your hair pulled.” That is, to show you can portray being physically abused.

“I will never forget that,” Schmieding said. “The roles for Natives, and particularly Native women, were always the victims. We used to say, ‘It’s a great thing if a Native person lives past the first act.’”

For Schmieding, who in “Rutherford Falls” plays Reagan, an intelligent, independent Native woman, the series is evidence of progress, albeit incremental.

More satisfying for her is that the sitcom enabled her at last to merge her worlds of cultural awareness and acting. Policy makers in Washington, D.C., who knew nothing about, say, the crisis of murdered Indigenous women in North America would perk up at the mention of “Rutherford Falls.”

“There is a way that TV and film can impact our culture, providing relevance and visibility — and it can be meaningful visibility,” Schmieding said. “When Natives are portrayed as the well-rounded, ambitious, sometimes messy three-dimensional people we are, then people can start to see us for ourselves on the screen.”

Consider Schmieding herself, and the high-pressure “Rutherford Falls” screen test that made the difference in her career.

She describes herself as equal parts Sandra Bernhard and Chris Farley, combining the grit and sass of the former with the physical comedy of the latter. She can be salty and sweet and as ridiculous as Tenacious D, Jack Black’s comedy rock duo. She is, at times, she said, a “hot mess.” Like anyone.

Standing opposite Helms to read for this make-or-break audition, Schmieding faced a room full of buttoned-down studio executives — they weren’t sitting in a circle but she knew she had to wow them, nevertheless.

She felt not a whisper of anxiety. Schmieding was in her element, comfortable in her own skin. She knew who she was, she knew what had made her: her Native upbringing, her education in theater, her training in comedy, her commitment to cultural awareness. In that moment, she knew all she had to do was be herself.

“I realized upon getting there that everything I had done in my life was leading to this point,” Schmieding said. “Not even just in college or early in my career, but going back to my grandparents and parents and how they raised us. This was just another audience. I charmed their pants off.”

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