Lewis Center for the Arts to Host a Conversation between Playwright Larissa FastHorse and Director/Playwright Michael John Garcés

(PRINCETON, NJ) — On March 20, 2024 the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater and Music Theater at Princeton University presents a conversation between playwright and member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation Larissa FastHorse, author of the widely produced The Thanksgiving Play, and Michael John Garcés, director, playwright, and recent artistic director of Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles.

The conversation will focus on FastHorse’s work and career including The Thanksgiving Play’s listing on the top ten-produced plays in America the past two seasons, the first Native American playwright to be represented on that list, as well as on their longstanding creative collaboration. FastHorse is a Short-Term Belknap Fellow in the Humanities Council and Lewis Center this semester. The event begins at 5:30pm in the Drapkin Studio, an accessible venue at the Lewis Arts complex on Princeton’s campus, and is cosponsored by Land, Language, and Art, a Global Initiative of the Humanities Council.

The event is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week prior to the event date.

FastHorse is a 2020 MacArthur Fellow, award winning writer/choreographer, and co-founder of Indigenous Direction, the nation’s leading consulting company for Indigenous arts and audiences. She is represented across the country in the 2023-2024 season with a revised book of the beloved Jerome Robbins Broadway musical, Peter Pan. She made her Broadway debut in the 2022-2023 season with her satirical comedy, The Thanksgiving Play, making her the first known female, Native playwright to be produced on Broadway (second only to Lynne Riggs in the 1930s). The Thanksgiving Play has been one of the top ten most-produced plays in America for the last two seasons. FastHorse is also one of the top 20 most-produced playwrights of last season. Additional produced plays include For The People, The Democracy Project, What Would Crazy Horse Do?, Landless and Cow Pie Bingo, Average Family, Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: a Class Presentation, Vanishing Point and Cherokee Family Reunion. In fall 2023, FastHorse was a professor of practice in literature at Arizona State University’s Department of English.

The Thanksgiving Play is a one-act satirical comedy about four white people trying to devise a politically correct piece of theater about Thanksgiving for an elementary school. The Lewis Center produced a reading of the play in October of 2021 directed by Tara Moses and produced by then-Princeton senior Sally Root.

Garcés is a Los Angeles-based director and playwright. His directing credits include For the People by Ty Defoe and Larissa FastHorse at The Guthrie Theatre, Wicoun, Native Nation and Urban Rez at Cornerstone Theater Company and The Thanksgiving Play at The Geffen Playhouse by Larissa FastHorse, the just and the blind by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Daniel Bernard Roumain at Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center, The Play You Want by Bernardo Cubrias at The Road Theatre Company, The Rivers Don’t Know by James McManus  at City Theatre, Highland Park is Here by Mark Valdez at Cornerstone, Seize the King by Will Power at The Alliance Theatre, and Epic by Ellen Struve at Great Plains Theatre Commons. Plays he has written include TOWN at Theatre Horizon and 36 Yesses at Cornerstone. He has worked at many other theaters across the country. Garcés is the recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, the Princess Grace Statue Award, and the Alan Schneider Director Award. He was the artistic director of Cornerstone Theater Company, a nationally recognized community-engaged ensemble, for many years. He is currently a professor of practice at Arizona State University; is the executive vice president of the executive board of SDC, the theatrical union for stage directors and choreographers; and is a member of the Arts Advisory Council of the Princess Grace Foundation.

Additionally, FastHorse and Garcés will lead a workshop with advanced theater-making students and share their creative expertise in curricular classes. FastHorse will also engage with students on campus through the student group Natives at Princeton.

Land, Language and Art is one of a number of Global Initiatives of the Humanities Council. This three-year project, from the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton, supports initiatives to foster new methodologies and modes of knowledge production in three areas of research and learning that are central to Indigenous Studies: land, language, and art.

Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the Lewis Center for the Arts and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, and lectures presented each year by the Lewis Center, most of them free.