The Thanksgiving Play

By Larissa FastHorse

Moderator: Karon Samuels

High school drama teacher Logan is desperate to save her career. Always ready to rock the boat, she is now facing a petition that calls for her termination. So she pursued several grants ranging from education to cultural awareness to bring together three actors that will devise a play about the first Thanksgiving. Or Native American Heritage Month. Or just November in general. With yoga instructor (and boyfriend) Jaxton, elementary teacher Caden, and professional actress Alicia, Logan is out to save her career and tell a culturally conscious story about what it means to be Native American … even though all of the performers are white. Punctuated by offensive (and completely real) Thanksgiving songs from educators’ social media, Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play is a hilarious satiric jab at political correctness, social wokeness, and cultural assumptions.

About the Playwright

Larissa FastHorse is a Native American (Sicangu Lakota) playwright and choreographer based in Santa Monica, California. FastHorse grew up in South Dakota, where she began her career as a ballet dancer and choreographer but was forced into an early retirement after ten years of dancing due to an injury. Returning to an early interest in writing, she became involved in Native American drama, especially the Native American film community. Later she began writing and directing her own plays, several of which are published through Samuel French (a Concord Theatricals Company) and Dramatic Publishing. With playwright and performer Ty Defoe, FastHorse co-founded Indigenous Direction, a “consulting firm that helps organizations and individuals who want to create accurate work by, for and with Indigenous peoples.”Indigenous Direction’s clients include the Guthrie Theater. FastHorse is a past vice chair of the Theatre Communications Group, a service organization for professional non-profit American theatre. Wikipedia

About the Moderator

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