larissa fasthorse

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.

The Thanksgiving Play

“Satire doesn’t get much richer… A takedown of white American mythology… The familiar, whitewashed story of Pilgrims and Native Americans chowing down together gets a delicious roasting.” —Jesse Green, New York Times

“Wryly funny… Deftly makes points that need making about representation and, to borrow a line from Hamilton, the crucial matter of ‘who tells your story.’” —Don Aucoin, Boston Globe

A group of well-intentioned white teaching artists scramble to create an ambitious “woke” Thanksgiving pageant. Despite their eager efforts to put on the most culturally sensitive show possible, it quickly becomes clear that even those with good intentions can be undone by their own blind spots.

What Would Crazy Horse Do?

“A nuanced portrait of reservation life… A scalding cauldron of race and resentment, poverty, and mental illness.” —Robert W. Butler, Kansas City Star

“A timely meditation on the dangers of nationalism tinged with a sad irony as seen through the filter of a Native American lens.” —Alan Portner, Broadway World

Twins Calvin and Journey, the last two members of the Marahotah tribe, make a suicide pact to end the Marahotah when the grandfather who raised them dies. Then two white strangers knock on their door and the insular world of the twins is ripped wide open.