Kane Stratton

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He wrote a play titled, “Caesar's Redemption” in 2019, and in that year Kane began working with Caesar’s Ford Theatre, Inc with the hopes of raising the standards of historical outdoor drama here in his home state of Ohio, and correcting the historical inaccuracies abound in the defunct but not forgotten outdoor drama, Blue Jacket.  

Then 2020 happened and the pandemic rocked all of us in the performance arts.  Kane improvised with the reality that there would likely be no live theater with in-person attendance, hence the swift transition to film was made, and his idea for a Virtual Performances Project was born.  

It was decided by the other members of the Board of Trustees(Kane joined in 2019) that Caesar’s Ford would produce a three-part series highlighting a few underrepresented African American historical figures from our local history starting with Colonel Charles Young of Wilberforce and a world-renowned poet Paul Laurence Dunbar from Dayton.  Finally, the third historical figure would be the lead character from Stratton’s play, Caesar, a formerly enslaved Black man who was caught in the crossfire between his adopted community of the Shawnee Tribe and the Virginians who brought war over the mountains.

So in an effort to cast and produce the short film, Kane took the recommendation from Caesar’s Ford Theatre Executive Producer at the time, Tim Haney, and contacted the Ohio History Connection and their American Indian Relations liaison, Stacey Halfmoon. Thanks to Ms. Halfmoon, Kane was then introduced to Shawnee consultant Jeremy Turner and through him, Kane was introduced to Talon Silverhorn, the man who would go on to translate Saawanwatowewe lines and play Blue Jacket in Stratton’s film.  Quickly, Stratton realized he had found the right people to make all these dreams of advancements possible, and through their friendships, Jeremy, Talon, and Kane got to work.  It was this latter production’s success that sealed his belief that should Caesar’s Ford find a way to cast and bring Tribal citizens here to Ohio as actors and historical interpreters, we could finally set a new course in our culture, bringing the characters to life, the right way.  

Leap forward to today, Stratton has become the Project Manager for Caesar’s Ford and a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Ohio Playwrights Circle. He has worked with two independent and budding film companies, D5pictures and Steelworks Media.  As of 2022, Kane has been building a network of supporters and collaborators ranging from leading archaeologists to the office of the Governor of Ohio to our local parks and historical site curators all in an effort to produce Caesar’s Ford Theatre’s current project in the pre-production stage, “Shawnee Living History Tour,” coming in the Fall of 2023. 

 Kane is 41 years of age, married to his beautiful wife, Steffanie, and a father to their son, Ayden.  They live in their little house in Yellow Springs with their mini-Aussie, Hudson, and their barn cat named Hess.  

“Our foundation is in historical research, and our future will be in bringing those facts to life.”