The Thanksgiving Play

By Larissa Fasthorse

Directed By Kari Goetz

Oct. 25 – Nov. 17, 2019

Tickets start at: $29.50

Preview Performances: Oct. 23 – 24 | Tickets start at: $18

Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center for the Performing Arts

The familiar, whitewashed story of Pilgrims and Native Americans chowing down together gets a delicious roasting from expert farceurs.

What It’s About

Ah, Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays: when families gather to celebrate the warmth of home, the bounty of the harvest — and a legacy of genocide and violent colonial expansion. Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in Larissa FastHorse’s wickedly funny satire, as a troupe of terminally “woke” teaching artists scrambles to create a pageant that somehow manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month. Kari Goetz returns to Jobsite after a few years away, previously helming lauded productions like The March of the Kitefliers, boom!, and Crimes of the Heart.

Very, very funny. [It] skewers liberal pretensions with glee – this clever satire is something for which to be truly thankful.

Talkback

Join us Thu., Nov. 7, for a talkback with director Kari Goetz and the cast to hear more about the process and have your questions answered!

Giles Davies (top) and Adam Workman in Jobsite's The Thanksgiving Play. (Photo: Pritchard Photography.)
Giles Davies (top) and Adam Workman in Jobsite's The Thanksgiving Play. (Photo: Pritchard Photography.)

About The Playwright

Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) is an award winning playwright. Larissa’s produced plays include The Thanksgiving Play (Playwrights Horizons, Artists Rep), What Would Crazy Horse Do? (KCRep, Relative Theatrics), Urban Rez (Cornerstone Theater Company, ASU Gammage, NEFA National tour 2019-20), Landless and Cow Pie Bingo (AlterTheater), Average Family (Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis), Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: a Class Presentation (Native Voices at the Autry), Vanishing Point (Eagle Project) and Cherokee Family Reunion (Mountainside Theater). Additional theaters that have commissioned or developed plays with Larissa include Yale Rep, History Theater, Kennedy Center TYA, Baltimore’s Center Stage, Arizona Theater Company, Mixed Blood, Perseverance Theater Company, The Lark Playwrights Week, the Center Theatre Group Writer’s Workshop and Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor. Larissa’s awards include the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award for an American Playwright, NEA Distinguished New Play Development Grant, Joe Dowling Annamaghkerrig Fellowship, AATE Distinguished Play Award, Inge Residency, Sundance/Ford Foundation Fellowship, Aurand Harris Fellowship, the UCLA Native American Program Woman of the Year and numerous Creative Capital, Ford, Mellon and NEA Grants. Larissa is the vice chair of the board of directors of Theater Communications group and represented by Jonathan Mills at Paradigm NY.

The cast of Jobsite's The Thanksgiving Play. (Photo: Pritchard Photography.)
The cast of Jobsite's The Thanksgiving Play. (Photo: Pritchard Photography.)

Media

(L-R) Shawn Paonessa, David M. Jenkins and Spencer Meyers in Jobsite's The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged). (Photo by Pritchard Photography.)

MadLib the Bard!

Wanna play a game? Our ensemble is champing at the bit to do something for you, even in self-isolation. So far Colleen Cherry has started

Read More »

Cast & Crew

  • Kari Goetz – Director
  • Brian M. Smallheer – Technical Director
  • Matthew Ray – Stage Manager

Cast

  • Giles Davies – Jaxton
  • Caitlin Eason – Logan
  • Dana Mauro – Alicia
  • Adam Workman – Caden

Crew

  • Jo Averill-Snell – Lighting Designer
  • Jeremy Douglass – Music Composer
  • Rebekah Eugenia Lazaridis – Scenic Artist
  • Brian M. Smallheer – Scenic Designer
  • Katrina Stevenson – Costume Designer

Patron Reviews

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