The Thanksgiving Play
- Written by Larissa FastHorse
- Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel
Playwrights debut. Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) is an award-winning playwright, director, and choreographer. Larissa’s produced plays include What Would Crazy Horse Do? (Kansas City Rep, Relative Theatrics), Urban Rez (Cornerstone Theater Company, NEFA National tour 2019-20), Landless and Cow Pie Bingo (AlterTheater), Average Family (Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis), Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: A Class Presentation (Native Voices at the Autry), Vanishing Point (Eagle Project), and Cherokee Family Reunion (Mountainside Theater). Larissa directed the critically acclaimed play, Our Voices Will Be Heard (Perseverance Theater Company) and is developing several new projects to direct with an emphasis on cross cultural community engaged work between Indigenous nations. Additional theaters that have commissioned or developed plays with Larissa include Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, ASU Gammage, History Theater, Kennedy Center TYA, Baltimore’s Center Stage, Arizona Theater Company, Mixed Blood, the Center Theatre Group Writer’s Workshop and Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor. Larissa was awarded the PEN USA Literary Award for Drama, NEA Distinguished New Play Development Grant, the UCLA Native American Program Woman of the Year, and numerous Ford, Mellon, and NEA Grants. She is a current member of the Playwright’s Union, Director’s Lab West 2015, officer of the TCG Board of Directors and Playwright’s Center Core Writers. As co-founder of Indigenous Direction with Ty Defoe, Larissa helps organizations plan and execute responsible engagements with Indigenous art, artists and audiences. www.hoganhorsestudio.com
Playwrights debut. Broadway: Present Laughter with Kevin Kline (three Tony nominations including Best Revival of a Play), Hand to God (five Tony nominations including Best Play and Best Director). West End: Hand to God (Olivier nomination). Off-Broadway: Important Hats of the Twentieth Century (MTC), Verité (LCT3), Trevor (Lesser America), Love Song of the Albanian Sous Chef (EST), Bike America (Ma-Yi), Mel & El (Ars Nova), Spacebar (Studio 42), and My Base and Scurvy Heart (Studio 42). Regional: Alliance, Williamstown, Huntington, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and more. Moritz is the former artistic director of Studio 42, NYC’s producer of “unproducible” plays. moritzvs.com
World premiere
Logan
With the Gender Equality in History Grant, the Excellence in Educational Theater Fellowship, a municipal arts grant and the Go! Girls! Scholastic Leadership Mentorship, this is far more than a Thanksgiving play.
Ah, Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays: when families gather to celebrate the warmth of home, the bounty of the harvest — and a legacy of genocide and violent colonial expansion. 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.
Featuring
Jennifer Bareilles
LoganJeffrey Bean
CadenGreg Keller
JaxtonMargo Seibert
AliciaPlaywrights debut. Off-Broadway: The Studio System (People’s Improv Theater), Maybe Tomorrow (The Poet Acts, New York Fringe Festival winner). Regional: Bright Half Life (Kitchen Theatre Company), Trial (THML, dir. Lori Petty), Valer (dir. Kayla Friend), Proof (Expression Productions, San Francisco), and Match (Expression Productions, San Francisco). Film: The Light of the Moon and Two Roads (Sony Worldwide Entertainment).
(Updated 10/1/18)
Playwrights debut. Broadway: Bells Are Ringing, Amadeus. Regional: Alley Theatre (Resident Company, 28 seasons, 125+ productions), Actors Theatre of Louisville, Ahmanson Theatre, Hartford Stage, Bay Street Theatre, White Heron Theatre. Film: Clinger. TV: “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Blacklist,” “The Good Cop.” Awards: Princess Grace Award, Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship. jeffreybean.com
(Updated 10/1/18)
Playwrights: The Thanksgiving Play. Broadway: “Jane” in In Transit, “Adrian” in Rocky (Drama League Nomination). Off-Broadway: Octet, Tamar of the River (Drama Desk nomination), The Undeniable Sound of Right Now. Select Regional: Always, Patsy Cline, A Doll’s House, Part 2, Ever After, The Last Five Years. TV: “Instinct”, “The Good Cop”, “Elementary”, “Boardwalk Empire.” Margo is the co-founder of the non-profit organization RACKET; learn more here www.weracket.com. Margo's debut album, “77 TH Street” is out now. www.margoseibert.com @margo_seibert
Creative Team
Wilson Chin
Scenic DesignTilly Grimes
Costume & Puppet DesignIsabella Byrd
Lighting DesignMikaal Sulaiman
Sound DesignKatie Ailinger
Production Stage ManagerJenny Kennedy
Assistant Stage ManagerThe familiar, whitewashed story of Pilgrims and Native Americans chowing down together gets a delicious roasting from expert farceurs.
Very, very funny. Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play skewers liberal pretensions with glee – this clever satire is something for which to be truly thankful.