The Thanksgiving Play aims to provoke thought through the idea of a completely Caucasian cast attempting to create a Thanksgiving play that is respectful and politically correct towards Native Americans. The contradictory nature of this idea is very unusual when considering the fact that this play is written by a Native American playwright.

The Thanksgiving Play was Fasthorse’s response to constantly being told her plays couldn’t be produced because they included at least one Indigenous character and theaters thought that they couldn’t find Native American actors for the roles. In response, FastHorse challenged herself to write a play about Native American issues that excluded that casting difficulty; enter The Thanksgiving Play.

Here, Fasthorse's characters are white people trying to write and produce a play about Native Americans with no input from them. The hyper-political correctness of the protagonists in this play is meant to touch on how complex and ultimately impossible it is to accomplish that task. It highlights issues such as the lack of casting of indigenous actors, erroneous attempts to represent indigenous people in American society, assumptions about Native American identity rather than tribal (national) identity, and various other problems indigenous people face in America.

Larissa Fasthorse is the only Native American woman to be produced on Broadway, and we are thrilled to bring one of her works to the Waco stage.

And you have 3 CHANCES to see it, so don't miss out:

Thursday, November 10, 7pm

Saturday, November 12, 7pm

Sunday, November 13, 7pm