NAHM: The Thanksgiving Play, A Staged Reading
November 19th from 10-11am Student Reading in PA 100
Larissa FastHorse is a playwright and performing arts advocate illuminating Indigenous processes of artmaking and storytelling as well as Native American perspectives on contemporary life.
The Thanksgiving Play centers around the folly of “woke” White educators attempting to write and direct a socially and historically responsible Thanksgiving play without consulting with or including Native Americans. Interspersed among scenes involving the earnest but angst-ridden teachers and two hired actors are depictions of actual Thanksgiving activities in public schools, emphasizing the ways in which the colonial myth of the holiday is perpetuated. Steeped in satire, the play also exposes the complications and contradictions involved in redressing injustices of the past.
