Meet the first Native American woman to bring a show to Broadway. (via KnowYourValue)
When Larissa FastHorse was growing up in South Dakota, she was taught that Thanksgiving was a time for harvest and gratitude. The inaccurateIt’s part of the reason why FastHorse, 51, decided to write the satirical comedy “,” which tells the story of four woke, white theater makers who are writing a Thanksgiving play for students to perform. The liberal, well-meaning artists worry so much about not offending anyone and getting the story historically right, that things go very wrong.
With the play’s opening this week, FastHorse is making history as the first Native American woman to bring a show on Broadway. It’s being directed by Tony Award-winning director Rachel Chavkin and stars Katie Finneran, Scott Foley, Chris Sullivan and D’Arcy Carden. Know Your Value: You grew up in South Dakota. What are your memories of Thanksgiving during your childhood, and how did it influence the story you tell in “The Thanksgiving Play”?The play is based in a classroom. My childhood classroom experiences with Thanksgiving was not like the play. My experience was [that Thanksgiving is] entirely a harvest festival. The way Thanksgiving is taught in schools with plays and pageants depicting pilgrims and Indians was completely new to me.
Know Your Value: Tell us about the genesis of the play — and how you decided to weave a lot of humor into a story about America’s dark history.I'm a comedy writer. Comedy is also in Native American culture. We say, “you have to laugh or cry,” so we choose to laugh … We deal with the dark history with humor and that's how we persevere and we survive. Using comedy is natural for me, and it's the indigenous way to deal with things.
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