This three-play collection celebrates the vibrancy and vitality of modern Indigenous culture and draw attention to complex issues within the contemporary Native experience.
This latest volume from... Read More
Description
This three-play collection celebrates the vibrancy and vitality of modern Indigenous culture and draw attention to complex issues within the contemporary Native experience.
This latest volume from the acclaimed author of The Thanksgiving Play collects a trilogy of plays co-created with Cornerstone Theater Company as well as urban Native artists and culture bearers.
In Urban Rez, five interconnected stories depict members of a Native tribe in Los Angeles weighing the pros and cons of federal recognition.
Developed through talking circles with Indigenous peoples of Arizona, Native Nation is an immersive theatrical production that seeks to combat the erasure of Native people from wider American culture by telling the story of the land through the eyes of its original people.
Created with people of the Lakota and Dakota tribal nations, Wicoun centers on Áya and their brother Khoskalaka, who are already busy enough raising cousins and siblings while trying to graduate high school. Then the zombies arrive. When Áya summons a native superhero for help, they set off on a journey across the lands of the Oceti Sakowin.
Together, these plays explore a wide range of urgent issues that continue to affect Indigenous communities today, including assimilation, two-spirit identity, food equity, water rights, tribal sovereignty, broken treaties, genocide, and violation of sacred lands. They also celebrate a rich history and essential culture, telling stories by and for Native people.
Details
- Price: $19.95
- Pages: 248
- Carton Quantity: 20
- Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
- Imprint: Theatre Communications Group
- Publication Date: 21st October 2025
- Trim Size: 5.38 x 8.5 in
- ISBN: 9781636702476
- Format: Paperback
- BISACs:
DRAMA / Contemporary
DRAMA / Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
DRAMA / Women Authors
DRAMA / Native American
Reviews
Urban Rez, Native Nation, and [Wicoun] are designed to be what FastHorse calls ‘intentionally incompatible experiences’ for non-Indigenous people. While she isn’t actually trying to alienate white theatregoers, the trilogy’s narratives avoid any pretense that they need or want a non-Indian stamp of approval. Instead, said FastHorse, these works are created by and for Indigenous people as a way for them to tell their stories the way they want them told.
—American TheatreUrban Rez:
[Urban Rez] may be a story filled with struggle and sorrow but it’s also a tale of resilience, passion, and (to state the obvious) love. I’ll never forget my visit to the Urban Rez.
LA Explorer
For Urban Rez, company members join with nonprofessional actors representing 15 tribal nations to explore and humanize the cross-cultural challenges that go with being a truly native Southern Californian.
—Los Angeles TimesNative Nation:
While reflective of Indigenous life in Arizona, many of the issues addressed in Native Nation, as in Urban Rez, mirror broader concerns in Native country. The topics of environmental degradation, the violation of sacred lands, and the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. and Canada are all addressed in Native Nation.
—American TheatreWicoun:
Through inside tribal jokes and powerful topics of rural life, the script evokes a clever, entertaining, and thought-provoking narrative that touches on kinship, Native superheroes, and the complicated dynamic of balancing white American heteronormative expectations and Oceti Sakowin cultural values.
—Studies in American Indian Literatures
FastHorse’s dense and wise ninety-minute comedy contains dozens of additional life lessons worthy of unpacking…Through a satirical comedy about Lakota superheroes, her wise words resonated throughout the sparsely populated territory of her native state, from the Black Hills across the Great Plains. If only her message of inclusion, generosity, and love could somehow carry further into the collective consciousness of our greedy and unreconciled nation.
—HowlRound
Author Bio
This three-play collection celebrates the vibrancy and vitality of modern Indigenous culture and draw attention to complex issues within the contemporary Native experience.
This latest volume from the acclaimed author of The Thanksgiving Play collects a trilogy of plays co-created with Cornerstone Theater Company as well as urban Native artists and culture bearers.
In Urban Rez, five interconnected stories depict members of a Native tribe in Los Angeles weighing the pros and cons of federal recognition.
Developed through talking circles with Indigenous peoples of Arizona, Native Nation is an immersive theatrical production that seeks to combat the erasure of Native people from wider American culture by telling the story of the land through the eyes of its original people.
Created with people of the Lakota and Dakota tribal nations, Wicoun centers on Áya and their brother Khoskalaka, who are already busy enough raising cousins and siblings while trying to graduate high school. Then the zombies arrive. When Áya summons a native superhero for help, they set off on a journey across the lands of the Oceti Sakowin.
Together, these plays explore a wide range of urgent issues that continue to affect Indigenous communities today, including assimilation, two-spirit identity, food equity, water rights, tribal sovereignty, broken treaties, genocide, and violation of sacred lands. They also celebrate a rich history and essential culture, telling stories by and for Native people.
- Price: $19.95
- Pages: 248
- Carton Quantity: 20
- Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
- Imprint: Theatre Communications Group
- Publication Date: 21st October 2025
- Trim Size: 5.38 x 8.5 in
- ISBN: 9781636702476
- Format: Paperback
- BISACs:
DRAMA / Contemporary
DRAMA / Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
DRAMA / Women Authors
DRAMA / Native American
Urban Rez, Native Nation, and [Wicoun] are designed to be what FastHorse calls ‘intentionally incompatible experiences’ for non-Indigenous people. While she isn’t actually trying to alienate white theatregoers, the trilogy’s narratives avoid any pretense that they need or want a non-Indian stamp of approval. Instead, said FastHorse, these works are created by and for Indigenous people as a way for them to tell their stories the way they want them told.
—American TheatreUrban Rez:
[Urban Rez] may be a story filled with struggle and sorrow but it’s also a tale of resilience, passion, and (to state the obvious) love. I’ll never forget my visit to the Urban Rez.
LA Explorer
For Urban Rez, company members join with nonprofessional actors representing 15 tribal nations to explore and humanize the cross-cultural challenges that go with being a truly native Southern Californian.
—Los Angeles TimesNative Nation:
While reflective of Indigenous life in Arizona, many of the issues addressed in Native Nation, as in Urban Rez, mirror broader concerns in Native country. The topics of environmental degradation, the violation of sacred lands, and the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. and Canada are all addressed in Native Nation.
—American TheatreWicoun:
Through inside tribal jokes and powerful topics of rural life, the script evokes a clever, entertaining, and thought-provoking narrative that touches on kinship, Native superheroes, and the complicated dynamic of balancing white American heteronormative expectations and Oceti Sakowin cultural values.
—Studies in American Indian Literatures
FastHorse’s dense and wise ninety-minute comedy contains dozens of additional life lessons worthy of unpacking…Through a satirical comedy about Lakota superheroes, her wise words resonated throughout the sparsely populated territory of her native state, from the Black Hills across the Great Plains. If only her message of inclusion, generosity, and love could somehow carry further into the collective consciousness of our greedy and unreconciled nation.
—HowlRound