Larissa FastHorse, of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, along with being the first Indigenous Woman produced on Broadway, is an award winning writer/choreographer, a 2020 MacArthur Fellow, and a co-founder of Indigenous Direction. Before opening weekend, Larissa took a morning to sit down with the Knockturnal over Zoom to discuss her Broadway production of THE THANKSGIVING PLAY with Second Stage Theater. A playwright who began her career She discusses her collaboration with Tony Award Winning Director Rachel Chavkin, the cast and creative team of THE THANKSGIVING PLAY, and her hopes and feelings on Indigenous representation.
The Knockturnal: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. Just to jump right in: how are you feeling about opening night coming soon and how have you felt about the play after these past few weeks of previews? How are you feeling about everything?
Larissa: Yeah. You know, I’m feeling excited. I’m really excited to have this play launched. It’s a hard thing for a playwright. I guess, I’m not a mother, but in a trite way, this is kind of a mother’s feel because you launch [a play] into the world and it lives without you and it grows and it changes. And I leave the day after opening, so it’s kind of bittersweet because opening night is this big celebration, but I’ll never see it again, you know? So, yeah, it’s a little hard that way. I’m like, “oh, I’m gonna miss it. I’m gonna miss these people,” but, you know, that’s the beauty of live theater. It’s something that happens once and if you miss it, it’s gone. And it was a live experience. So that’s also, you know, what I sign up for by doing theater.
The Knockturnal: Yeah. I see that. So with this play and all its recent iterations in the past few years and when it first was written, how has this iteration of THE THANKSGIVING PLAY been in comparison to previous ones? Whether it was your involvement or the production itself, how have they varied and what have you been noticing?
Larissa: Yeah, you know, this one is the first one I’ve been involved with since Covid and the tragic events 2020. And so we updated a great deal. This is the most changed production of any that we’ve had because one, we just had a long break, but also, so much has changed in our world. And so we did a lot just to make it relevant by responding. There was a section we changed, all the way in our second week of previews because things were happening in the world that we felt like we needed to respond to as far as band books and what can be taught in schools and that sort of thing. And since it’s so much dealing directly with education system and what children are and aren’t taught in schools, we felt like we really had to respond and include some of these issues in the play to make sure people are thinking about all the things we want them to think about. So it’s changed a lot. There’s been a lot of updates both in the text and then of course the scope of Broadway is very different. And so it’s a lot bigger. It’s a lot crazier. It’s definitely made to be a Broadway experience, which is exciting. Because even though this theater is a beautiful, perfect theater for live play and just new plays, it’s still, you know, 600 people and you wanna fill it. And so I think Rachel Chavkin has done an incredible job of doing that.
The Knockturnal: Yeah. And on that note, how has it been working with Rachel Chavkin in this production, especially to this scale? How has that been for you?
Larissa: It’s been awesome. Rachel and I have been friends for about 10 years, so we’ve been trying to work together for a long time and watching each other going up through our careers. And it’s really exciting to finally work together with her in this space. It’s her straight play debut on Broadway. She’s never had a straight play on Broadway, and it’s my Broadway debut in general. So it’s really fun to get to share that experience with her and to take advantage of her gigantic Broadway Tony winning musical theater production experience and say, “okay, what do we do with four people in one room? And how do we make that so much larger than four people in one room?” Because ultimately we want it to speak to the worldwide Broadway audience that we get. And we meet people from all over the world every night after the show. So how do we make that that piece expand out? So it’s definitely relevant to a global audience. And it’s been really fun to discover that together. We’re both super collaborative. Our room is all about like pitching: everyone has a voice. Everyone has a place to process things. Everyone has the ability to add in ideas. And we have these four incredibly funny, talented actors who have a thousand ideas a day so it’s great. It makes my job hard and easy at the same time. Easy, cause I have so many great ideas, but hard cause it’s like, oh, we have to choose one.
The Knockturnal: Absolutely. And it’s so evident in the show that there’s so much active collaboration and layering throughout the piece. It’s so fun to watch everybody cohesively do their bits that are adding to the story, while also letting us see the individuality of each person and each voice. I love that.
Larissa: Yeah, they’re so conscious of that. Like, they’re always like, “oh, I don’t wanna step, let’s pick the best bit so we don’t step on this one.” And yet at the same time, they can all make anything funny. I mean, D’arcy Carden peels a grape and you just wanna die. Like, she’s not even saying anything. I mean, they could make it so it could be like a six hour show. Easily! So it’s just constant. Then that’s where it takes Rachel and her team and myself to be like, “okay, this is softening ’em up. This is a chuckle. Here’s the laugh,” you know?
The Knockturnal: Yeah. And with that, what was the casting process like and how involved were you in it? How did it feel to reach out to these people? And what were these people like in adding to the vision of your play?
Larissa: Yeah, you know, casting is weird. I do, as a playwright, always have final approval of casting, so I’m always very involved. However, I’m very aware that I’m not the person who has to stand there in the room and have those people trust me in the way that the director does. So for playwrights, it’s this constant hands on, hands off. I have the final approval. They can’t hire anyone without me. However, at the same time, I wanna make sure these are people that the director feels can fulfill their vision and that they can work well with. So I’m always very involved, but also always letting the director lead. I really only jump in if there’s something I just don’t agree with or, you know, I’m like, between this person and this person and I would go this way. I’ve never had to like veto a director in any way. Which is great cause I picked my directors really carefully too. Cause I have final approval over my directors as well. But the celebrity process, which I’m also right now going through for my new play in Los Angeles, It’s really different, because you can’t audition these folks. So it’s making offers, having meetings, doing zooms, trying to feel each other out in the room, and make sure it’s, we’re subject to their very busy schedules. It’s a very different experience than a regular casting call where people come in and you audition them. So I’m still getting used to that side of it. I’m only on my second kind of celebrity casting and it’s such a different world. And I’m learning too. Like, so often what the agents say is not at all what the actor is feeling.The agent will be like, “oh, they won’t, they won’t meet, they won’t do this.” And then I hear from the actor through friends, and they’re like, “oh my gosh, they’re dying to meet on your play.” But the agents are trying to position their clients to the best possible project that they think. And sometimes they don’t think theater is the best possible project.
The Knockturnal: Yeah. Yeah. That’s so interesting. So in regards to that shift from this smaller scale into this huge scale of involvement and name and acclaim, especially because you’ve done such incredible work and this is an incredible feat of being the first indigenous woman playwright produced on Broadway with this huge kind of eye on you. How has that been feeling, especially with your future work coming and now this kind of new scale of attention?
Larissa: Yeah, it’s super stressful! I mean, it’s also great. I’m trying to focus on the positive of it and we, you know, it is awesome and I love that we’re meeting. We wouldn’t be meeting if I wasn’t here. Yeah. And I love all of that. And, and I love that people care. I’m the second Native American playwright on Broadway and first was Lynn Riggs at being the last century. And then I’m the first woman. But, you know, I’m thrilled but it’s always this constant conflict in my head of like, “it’s been since the last century since another Indigenous playwright produced on Broadway. I don’t want it to be another century” You know? Like the next native playwright should not be in 2124. So I feel a little bit of, probably self obsessed pressure not to like mess up because I could screw things up for people. But at the same time, I’m thrilled that so many people care that there’s a Native American playwright on Broadway. I was a little worried. Even people in my community were like, “are people gonna cover this? Does anyone care? Like, it matters to us.” And I was like, “I hope so.” But it’s also hard because indigenous people were very taught to think of things not around self and then as communities, especially as a Lakota person. So it’s a very new thing putting myself out there. But at the same time, then here’s the conflict, right? Like, I had a, a friend of mine who’s an indigenous actor, I’ve worked with a lot, Kenny Ramos, and he came here for 18 hours to see the show from San Diego, and he stayed on my couch and we got home from the show and we jumped up and down and said, “we made it, we made it!” Because that’s what it feels like as an indigenous person, right? That we made it. Like we got on Broadway and it isn’t about me. It’s about us celebrating. And him and many folks place their trust in the fact that I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure I keep that door open so many other native artists are welcome through it. And I’ve still got five more place to go this year. So I’m just getting started!
The Knockturnal: And especially because theater is so communal and it’s so community based that it makes sense to have a community that is so immersed in community and supporting one another and shares this sense of oneness throughout an entire nation. I think Broadway can learn something from that and also really take it into action.
Larissa: Yeah. It’s pretty awesome. It’s funny because sometimes what I don’t have is much of a Broadway community. Like there’s no native Broadway community cause there hasn’t been any yet. And so there’s no one to look to in that way. I certainly have people from other communities reaching out to me from the Black Broadway community and some white folks too that are friends that have been like, “you know, if you need anything, let me know.” It’s lovely of them to reach out, but it’s a different world. Like, sometimes I get jealous. There’s no coalition for native theater artists. But then I’ve got all this community, I mean, native people that I know have been coming from all over the country to see this show. People from all these different places where I’ve worked and have been over the years, and that’s the most moving thing. I’m so touched by how much those folks have reached out and spent the time and the money to come out here and see the show. So we can all say, “yay, we made it!”
The Knockturnal: Yay! That’s such a wonderful experience. But there needs to be more support and there needs to be more so we can continue to keep adding to this. I was reading in a lot of your interviews about the specific tactic you had of writing this show because of the whole, “it’s difficult to cast indigenous actors” concept that people use to back down from representation and how it aided you in this idea of this story. Can you tell me more about that experience and what inspired you for this particular play that is so beautifully crafted in a way that is centering indigenous voices while also kind of catering towards white centered folks?
Larissa: Yeah. I identify as Lakota but I was brought up in South Dakota, because I was adopted by a white family early in my life. And it’s an open adoption so I knew my Lakota family, but I was raised primarily in a white family. And so I often have said, what I used to feel like a weakness, I realize is my strength that I’m a bridge between contemporary indigenous experience and white culture, which is, like it or not, western theater. And definitely Broadway is still white culture. And I kept hitting the glass ceiling of not being able to have native people cast my plays and it was just so frustrating. And so I set myself the challenge of writing a play with all non-native folks, but still represent native concepts. When I focused on this idea, it was actually really exciting. And artistically it was exciting too. Like, “oh, how can I do this?” And really I got really into it . And the good news is I love this play because it does do all the things that I wanted it to do. And I think I’m taking advantage of the fact that I have this incredible platform to speak to well-meaning white folks, which are, you know, the vast majority of our theater audiences. I truly believe they mean well and they’re good people and they care about humanity or they wouldn’t be coming to theater, you know.
Because they wanna be with fellow humans. They wanna learn about other humans and hear their experiences. And so it’s really exciting that they’ve embraced, and started listening to what I have to say and say and go home reflecting Like, “here’s more things for you to think about. Mm-Hmm. Here’s more things for you to question about yourself, about each other, about the education system you know, about the erasure of indigenous peoples on a much bigger level than maybe you thought about before.” On a very specific level, when we were talking about Thanksgiving, that seems super specific, but it’s because that was a universal way in to say, “look, there’s this huge world that maybe you haven’t even thought about.” I often tell people it’s kinda like the matrix. Once you swallow that pill, there’s no going back. Like once, once you take it, you’re, you’re in and you’re gonna, your eyes are open. You’re gonna be like, oh my gosh, I, I, it’s just, your brain just keeps going. Like, I didn’t realize I was missing out of this and this and what about this and what about this? And well, you know, you start questioning a lot of things. And that’s, you know, if people do that, if people leave like questioning why yeah. Long after the play, then I’ve done my job and I’m feel successful and like I’ve done something good in the world. Yeah. And laughed and had a good time. Yes.
The Knockturnal: Exactly. I was gonna ask too, because in other interviews I saw that you were talking about the importance of coming together as a community and not kind of going on this whole “you should be doing this and like, shame on you audience.” And it’s like, we’re coming together for a purpose and using comedy to highlight the issues to allow the laughter to make space for talking about serious things. Especially with this iteration of THE THANKSGIVING PLAY, it does get pretty brutal and pretty dark, even though it’s still very funny. There are very explicit violent moments that I found so fascinating. How do you feel about creating that in this specific container and the sense of community for a Broadway community versus other communities?
Larissa: You know, what’s interesting about some of those moments that we share in this play about Thanksgiving are just very honest parts of history . I mean, all we are doing is telling the truth. The interesting thing to me, even in the rehearsal room, people were like, “I don’t know, maybe we can’t do this. Maybe we shouldn’t say these things.” And we would tell them it’s okay because for the native people, this is not news. This is not new information. We’ve always known it, not only do we know about it, it was actually stories passed down from in our own families of these exact atrocities. Like the survivors passed these stories down person to person can be traced back to the humans that this happened to. So it’s not just information, it’s not just history. These are our own stories that we know. And we know what happened to us. So it’s not news to any native people. People would say, “well, we don’t wanna traumatize people.” But sometimes I think maybe we do! But only a little bit <laugh>
But with native folks, we had quite a few native folks in the room, in the creative team, they also agreed that we need to see it fully. We need to not have it filtered and not have it softened. Like, black folks have had to do this in their movies too. Like, you’re saying slavery, but you’re kind of showing out into the field and they come back and they’re not well. Like, what happened in between? It’s sort of the same idea. It’s time to say what really happened. This is what actually happened. But also it’s a relief to like be “Yes. We just finally just said it.” Because if we say what we’re talking about, then we can all move forward in some way. But we can’t move forward until we admit what it was. That’s where the harder parts just have to be done. And, that’s satire, right? Satire has to be honest, like, I’ve got com Oh, there’s a lot of comedy. I would say it’s a comedy in a satire, but satire has to be brutally honest to have the effect you want it to have. And then be tempered with the comedy, which is kind of the release valve in between those, those moments.
The Knockturnal: Yes. Thank you for sharing that. And it feels so clear with the piece because if we never look at it, we’re just gonna keep either repeating the same mistake or just keep running around in circles. No one’s ever gonna grow and no one’s ever gonna change.
Larissa: Exactly. Rachel always calls us when she talks about the characters and the experience of just watching the play as a white person, and it’s like the snake eating its own tail, it just keeps going around and around and it just like never gets anywhere and it’s never satisfied.
The Knockturnal: That is so clear in the piece. Especially with the very specific PC language and the characters that are “so aware we’re so woke.” And then they kind of out-woke themselves into an odd circle and it ends up supporting the absolute opposite of what they were well intendedly trying to do. It was so fascinating. I was like “Oh Look at that, they swirled again.”
Larissa: Yeah, exactly. And really with this version of these characters, it could kind of go on, you know, into infinity
The Knockturnal: Yeah! it Really does feel like the play could just keep going. And you mentioned how this draft is the most different one. Can I ask, what are some things that stood out to you in the differences and things that you were excited to explore? Things that you were nervous to explore or things that you were pleasantly surprised of?
Larissa: Yeah, for sure. First off, obviously a big difference is the the videos. We shot those with a couple dozen children and Rachel conceived an incredible set and setting for these. And the concepts are all hers as far as how we captured those things. Even though they’re real things that I found on the internet, it’s her concept on how we filmed them and directed it. And our costume designer, Lux Haac did just an incredible job. She did a really heavy lift on that. So that is obviously very different. And having the budget and the ability to do it. I filmed it one other time with children, but I didn’t have like this kind of budget to make it a full shoot. And that reverberates and actually changed the structure of the scenes. Because previously in most of the productions, the four actors had then done those interstitial scenes themselves and in different ways. Certain jokes that were just there to fill time because we realized, “oh, right, that’s because they needed three more seconds backstage to change this person on this costume to get ’em on stage, you know?”
And so we had to restructure the play cause they could move a lot faster because we didn’t have to do that. They could just pop in and out of scenes because we have these videos in between. And so we lost some favorite jokes, so that was hard for people. But I can write 10 more jokes before lunch. You know, like, don’t worry, I’m a joke machine. I’ve doing six comedies this year. I can write a joke.
And then just with these humans in the room again, you know, they’re so talented. Like one specific thing, like D’arcy Carden is a genius of interjection. She can shoot a word in between other people’s words, like nobody. And so I added quite a few little introjections that she didn’t have before because she’s just brilliant at it. Her timing to just shoot a word in there and get it between, like in her very first scene where it’s just, it’s just word for word with Logan and her about pronouns. And it’s not an easy thing to do to get something in that fast and make it sound natural, but she has a, a gift for it. So, you know, I adapted it to fit that gift. All of the actors, you know, had a lot of say in, in how they work and how they like present themselves. And I worked with all of them one-on-one and then in groups to adjust every scene to make it fit their timing and their strengths perfectly. And then, I was pulling in things from the world too, so how do we update that? Little things. Funny things like poor Skype. Originally in the play we have a scene where the characters talk about “Skype audition” and on the first day we’re all like, “oh, poor Skype, it didn’t survive the pandemic” and we had to switch it to Zoom. Like it’s even little stuff like that. But you realize, you know, world changes quickly.
The Knockturnal: Of course. Wow, what a full and shifting process! Another thing I wanted to talk about was your goal for representation when it comes to Native Voices and how do you, what are you hoping to see in your future projects and what are you hoping to see in more works in the theater community? Any hopes and dreams that you’d want to give light to?
Larissa: Yeah, I mean, I will say, first off, it was originally a bummer that I had to write a play with for white presenting folks. But the good news is now I have five more plays this year and they all have native characters in them. All of them. Most of them are majority native. Which is amazing. So I get to hire like dozens of native actors this year and before, that was a wall I just couldn’t break through. So it’s really exciting to have that happening. I think, dreams for the future, I just cannot be last native playwright, even this decade. Which sounds ridiculous, but come on people. It’s taken, you know, 80 years is the last one. Let’s try for 10, you know, like less than 10, let’s try for one. You know, we need to have one, let’s say in the twenties, let’s still have another one in the twenties. We just have to start understanding it. I’m part of a lot of initiatives to just work on also building those networks. Because we don’t have a network of folks here on Broadway to help us out. And it’s such a completely different world. If you’re not in the theater world, I’m not sure that people understand how incredibly different the nonprofit regional theater world is. And even though I’m in a nonprofit house on Broadway, it’s a different, very different world.
And the audiences are so different. People are coming from all around the world, you don’t know who’s gonna walk in. People go to CKTS and get last minute tickets and walk in and they don’t even know what they’re walking into. And so you’re dealing with such a broad group of folks, which is exciting, but also you have to think a little bit about what’s a play for literally everybody. We’ve been lucky. I hope it continues our houses, with my partnership with Second Stage and our outreach we’re doing together, our houses are so diverse. I mean, we’ve never had a majority older white audience attend the show yet. Like, not hugely majority, you know, it’s, it’s, there’s so many people of color. And so many ages. There’s so many geographies. It’s just been really beautiful to see that and I hope it continues. I would love that for every play I go to, not just the one where the the theater and the native folks are really doing a lot of, or the creatives are doing so much outreach, I would love that to be standard. We’ve made the tickets very available. I would love all Broadway houses to do that. We have a special code just for indigenous folks, they’re unbelievably cheap tickets that are cheaper than your local theater company yeah. Why doesn’t all Broadway do that? It’s not that many people! But I mean, hopefully one day it’s so many native people, they’re like, “we can’t do this anymore!” But until then, why doesn’t everybody just give incredibly inexpensive tickets to native people? And build that audience you keep saying you want, because if not, why should they come? There hasn’t been a community for them, so why should they come? So start there. Let’s start building the work. Let’s start building the attendance and then hopefully it’ll be a very different Broadway within 10 years. And we’ll see lot of native people in the house and on the stage. That will be amazing.
The Knockturnal: Yes. I’m so hoping for that as well. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for everything you’ve shared and just your art. And I can’t wait to keep following your career and all the amazing things that you’re going to be doing. And thank you for just Yeah. For your talent and your grace. Oh, thanks. Thank you.
Larissa: I appreciate It so much. Thank you.
THE THANKSGIVING PLAY is playing at Second Stage Theater until June 11th!
