Play Reading Club: THE THANKSGIVING PLAY

Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in Larissa FastHorse’s wickedly funny satire, as a troupe of terminally “woke” teaching artists scrambles to create a pageant that somehow manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month.

About the playwright:

Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation) is an award-winning writer and 2020-2025 MacArthur Fellow. Her satirical comedy The Thanksgiving Play made her the first known female Native American playwright on Broadway, at the Helen Hayes under the direction of Rachel Chavkin. Her new plays in 2023 are Wicoun (Cornerstone Theater Company), Democracy Project (Federal Hall), Fake It Until You Make It (CTG Mark Taper Forum), For the People (Guthrie), and the national tour of Peter Pan (Networks). Selected past plays include What Would Crazy Horse Do? (KCRep), Landless and Cow Pie Bingo (AlterTheater), Average Family (Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis) and Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: a Class Presentation (Native Voices at the Autry), as well as numerous productions of The Thanksgiving Play, making it one of the most produced plays in America.

Larissa created the nationally recognized trilogy of community engaged theatrical experiences with Cornerstone Theater Company; Urban Rez, Native Nation and Wicoun. She and her collaborator, Michael John Garcés, spend years on each project in an Indigenized community engagement process. “The engagement itself is the art form.” These projects have earned them national funding and an appointment to Arizona State University.

Larissa’s company with Ty Defoe, Indigenous Direction, recently produced the first land acknowledgement on national television for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC and continues to consult for them. They also consult for the largest theater organizations in the country.

Larissa also writes in film and television, most recently as a creator for NBC, Disney Channel, Dreamworks, Muse, Netflix and others. She is based in Los Angeles with her husband, the sculptor Edd Hogan, and represented by Jonathan Mills at Paradigm NY. She is especially honored to follow in the footsteps of the last known Native American playwright on Broadway, Lynn Riggs. hoganhorsestudio.com