Kels Cooper planned to work in tribal law. Now she’s telling Native stories for the stage and screen.

If everything had gone to plan, Kels Cooper would never have held the mic at a festival gig in Los Angeles, or worked on the set of “Reservation Dogs.” Her sights were on becoming the right-hand man of a top tribal attorney or working in the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court. 

She earned a master’s degree in Indigenous Peoples Law to do just that. But, after graduating from the University of Oklahoma in 2022, Cooper had an existential crisis.

“Who am I without school?” Cooper recalls thinking. “I’m an artist at heart, and I just gave my whole adult life to the book.” 

The self-proclaimed theater kid already knew people in the Tulsa comedy scene, including the recognized comic and host Evan Hughes. Trying stand-up crossed her mind more than a few times. That summer, Cooper signed up for Landry Miller’s comedy class and experienced the high of performing for the first time during a graduation show at The Loony Bin. 

“I just had this epiphany that this is what I want to do,” said the 33-year-old. 

Since then, Cooper says there hasn’t been a Plan B — and the Owasso-based comedian’s credits reflect that relentless pursuit. Case in point: Four years ago, Cooper volunteered at Blue Whale Comedy Festival so she could attend for free. This August, Cooper is featured on two shows, including as host of Fassler Hall’s Sunday brunch. 

“Every year, as I like to say, I crawl my way up that lineup,” she said. “I’m so grateful for Blue Whale and the way that the opportunities they’ve given me have matched my growth.”

Like many of her counterparts in Tulsa’s arts scene, Cooper is a multi-hyphenate trying to make a living through different gigs in the industry. 

Her home is the art department, where Cooper has worked on projects as varied as Fox’s reality dating show “Farmer Wants a Wife” to Sterlin Harjo’s “Reservation Dogs.” She’s also led production design on short films, including several featured at the Circle Cinema Film Festival in July.

“That’s what I like about film is, the more you can do, the more you work,” said Cooper, who also worked this year on the second season of “The Lowdown.”

Cooper has recently turned her attention toward writing. Through the Netflix- and NBC-sponsored Native American TV Writers Lab, Cooper earned a $10,000 grant and the chance to draft a pilot script over the course of two months. Cooper, a Cherokee citizen with Choctaw lineage, is also a scholarship recipient at the Cherokee Film Institute and on her way to earning a certification. 

Growing up in a high-achieving family, it’s perhaps not surprising that Cooper’s dedication to learning continues. Her mother is a professor pursuing a doctorate degree in deaf studies education, as is her brother. When Cooper recently told her mom that she earned a scholarship to UCB, she thought her daughter was attending the University of California, Berkeley. 

Cooper had to break it to her: The scholarship was to Upright Citizens Brigade, the famed improv and sketch comedy school. 

“I have an MLS in tribal law, and I’m the loser of my family,” she said, laughing.  

Don’t let Cooper’s jokes fool you. Her ambitions to make a name for herself, and amplify Native women’s stories in the media, are high. 

She’s the producer of “Aunties Acting Up,” a comedy showcase featuring Indigenous women comics. Cooper wants to become the first Native American correspondent on “The Daily Show,” and the short film she’s preparing to direct is centered around a young Native woman. 

“Opening Day,” featuring a group of women helping a friend escape an abusive relationship while her partner is out for a hunting weekend, will be Cooper’s directorial debut — if she can secure the funding to make it happen. 

“I might just do it on, like, zero budget,” Cooper said, noting she bought a camera with the writers lab grant. “The winds will tell me when it’s ready.” 

Cooper is also awaiting a sign of when she will need to leave Oklahoma, at least temporarily, to bring her Hollywood dreams to fruition. Her family connections and being Indigenous, she says, tie her closely to the land and community.

In the meantime, she’s eager to keep building spaces where Native people can laugh together. Cooper says there are jokes that don’t land in mixed rooms that kill when she’s in front of a Native audience. 

“Just having that space to be ourselves, and not have to whiten or water down anything,” she says. “Sometimes you just need to be in a room with … other descendants of genocide survivors. And that’s not, like, what we talk about, but our souls need to be together in community.”

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