Native Nation Project
Three plays that celebrate the vibrancy and vitality of modern Indigenous culture and draw attention to the complex issues at the center of the contemporary Native experience.
The latest volume from the acclaimed author of The Thanksgiving Play collects a trilogy of plays co-created by FastHorse with Cornerstone Theater Company and urban Native artists and culture bearers.
In Urban Rez, a theatrical experience structured as a Los Angeles Native American cultural fair weaves together five stories that depict a Native tribe confronted with an opportunity and a challenge: 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.
Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation) is a writer/choreographer, and co-founder of Indigenous Direction, the nation’s leading consulting company for Indigenous arts and audiences, which recently produced the first land acknowledgment on national television for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. FastHorse is the first Native American playwright in the history of American theater to have a play on the top ten most-produced list, with The Thanksgiving Play. The Thanksgiving Play was the first play written by an Indigenous woman ever to be produced on Broadway. Additional produced plays include What Would Crazy Horse Do?, Landless, Cow Pie Bingo, Average Family, Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: a Class Presentation, Vanishing Point, and Cherokee Family Reunion (Mountainside Theater). FastHorse is the recipient of numerous awards, including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship.
