From Larissa FastHorse
You don’t need to read this letter. Seriously, you know what it’s about…
Need help.
Send money.
You are getting this letter because you are already a theater person. You are specifically a Playwrights Horizons person. You believe in theater, you have probably given some money to this theater, and we really hope you will give more now. It’s that simple.
What isn’t simple is changing the world. I didn’t grow up a theater kid who was in school plays and went to theater camp and a theater MFA program. Theater and I came together later in life, so we don’t have a relationship built on youthful romance. Theater and I had a grown up courtship. We Googled each other. We started on a formal date with a solid exit plan on both sides. We took it slow before we moved in together.
I’m not sure why theater decided to stick it out with me — you’ll have to ask the people at Playwrights Horizons to answer that. But I know why I stuck with theater. It’s because it is the one place that allows me to bring my full self into the relationship. I get to be Native American and female and angry and sad and as sarcastic and funny as I want to be. I get to be both universal and specific. I get to collaborate with amazing artists and meet lovely theater patrons. And I get to do all of those things in service of trying to change the world one human at a time.
What you see on stage is a big part of that, but I ask places like Playwrights Horizons to do so much more. I asked this theater to attend cultural competency trainings, hire additional Indigenous artists, bring Native art into the space, truly reach out into the Indigenous community, and supply that community with tickets and access and readings and honorariums for their time. Playwrights Horizons rose above and beyond every challenge. All of that work took staff time and resources and money.
This is where you come in. What you see on stage is wonderful and probably made you fall in love with theater. But I agreed to write this letter because of all of the rest of the work that Playwrights does. It is life-changing in ways that you may not even realize. But now you know. It’s your gift that allows the full vision of playwrights like me to come to life. It is because of the additional work that you fund at Playwrights Horizons that I finally fell in grown-up, long-term love with theater.
I know there are a lot of things that need your money, but this one actually is special.
Need help.
Send money.
Change the world.
Pilamaya ye,
Larissa FastHorse
Playwright, The Thanksgiving Play
November 2018