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Thanks to the generous support of the South Dakota Arts Council, BHCT is offering several events (both invited and public) surrounding Larissa FastHorse's artist-in-residence. FastHorse's artist-in-residence is in conjunction with Cornerstone Theater's D/N/Lakota Theater Project.
Photo Credit: Conor Horgan
Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation) is an award winning writer and 2020-2025 MacArthur Fellow. Her satirical comedy, The Thanksgiving Play (Playwrights Horizons/Geffen Playhouse), was one of the top ten most produced plays in America. She is the first Native American playwright in the history of American theater on that list. Larissa is currently developing new plays with several theaters including Second Stage Theater, Center Theatre Group, The Public Theater, Guthrie Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Yale Repertory Theatre. In 2019 Larissa re-entered film and television by co-creating a series at Freeform. Since then she has set up projects with Disney Channel, NBC, Dreamworks, and is writing on a series for Apple+. www.hoganhorsestudio.com
Larissa FastHorse Artist-in-Residence Events
June 2022
Talking Circle: A first glimpse at the D/N/Lakota Project
Sunday, June 5th from 6-8pm (Studio Theater)
Local indigenous organizations, arts institutions, and interested artists are invited to this first glimpse of the D/N/Lakota Project in process.
The D/N/Lakota Theater Project is the third in a series of Cornerstone productions in collaboration with playwright Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation) and Indigenous people of U.S. lands. The D/N/Lakota Theater Project works with Native communities in South Dakota and explores the strength, beauty, humor, and perseverance of their culture, language and identity. Collaborating with residents of the Sicangu Lakota Nation (Rosebud), Oglala Lakota Nation (Pine Ridge), Ihanktonwan Dakota Oyate (Yankton), and other Lakota reservations, as well as Rapid City, Cornerstone will present this new production in multiple South Dakota locations. Expect music, marketplaces, dance, fashion, ritual, and telling of current Native stories in an interactive, accessible theatrical experience.
Sign up for the Larissa FastHorse's Devised Play-in-Progress: https://forms.gle/9UAn3UNbf88uJUf99
Sunday, June 5th from 6-8pm (Studio Theater)
Local indigenous organizations, arts institutions, and interested artists are invited to this first glimpse of the D/N/Lakota Project in process.
The D/N/Lakota Theater Project is the third in a series of Cornerstone productions in collaboration with playwright Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation) and Indigenous people of U.S. lands. The D/N/Lakota Theater Project works with Native communities in South Dakota and explores the strength, beauty, humor, and perseverance of their culture, language and identity. Collaborating with residents of the Sicangu Lakota Nation (Rosebud), Oglala Lakota Nation (Pine Ridge), Ihanktonwan Dakota Oyate (Yankton), and other Lakota reservations, as well as Rapid City, Cornerstone will present this new production in multiple South Dakota locations. Expect music, marketplaces, dance, fashion, ritual, and telling of current Native stories in an interactive, accessible theatrical experience.
Sign up for the Larissa FastHorse's Devised Play-in-Progress: https://forms.gle/9UAn3UNbf88uJUf99
Institute Intensive: Working with Communities
Monday, June 5th and Tuesday, June 6th from 6-9pm (Studio Theater)
Local indigenous organizations, arts institutions, and interested artists are invited to this first glimpse of the D/N/Lakota Project in process.
This workshop is designed to share tools for building authentic relationships within and between communities while creating art. Cornerstone will lead exercises and conversation that help the participants establish shared practices and vocabulary for the work ahead. Expect to take away strategies for group mapping, story gathering, turning stories into art and guidelines for helping adult first-time theater artists succeed.
With curriculum based on Cornerstone’s 35-year history and facilitated by company ensemble members, Institute Intensives draw Cornerstone case studies and on participants’ input and creativity for activities, exercises and conversations including: identifying and engaging communities; cultural mapping; story-gathering, scriptwriting and adaptation; design in a community context and rehearsal room strategies. The Intensive culminates with participants putting these elements into practice to create short collaborative performances.
Sign up for the Institute Intensive: https://forms.gle/2SJUWHAb2MQUYwAj7
Monday, June 5th and Tuesday, June 6th from 6-9pm (Studio Theater)
Local indigenous organizations, arts institutions, and interested artists are invited to this first glimpse of the D/N/Lakota Project in process.
This workshop is designed to share tools for building authentic relationships within and between communities while creating art. Cornerstone will lead exercises and conversation that help the participants establish shared practices and vocabulary for the work ahead. Expect to take away strategies for group mapping, story gathering, turning stories into art and guidelines for helping adult first-time theater artists succeed.
With curriculum based on Cornerstone’s 35-year history and facilitated by company ensemble members, Institute Intensives draw Cornerstone case studies and on participants’ input and creativity for activities, exercises and conversations including: identifying and engaging communities; cultural mapping; story-gathering, scriptwriting and adaptation; design in a community context and rehearsal room strategies. The Intensive culminates with participants putting these elements into practice to create short collaborative performances.
Sign up for the Institute Intensive: https://forms.gle/2SJUWHAb2MQUYwAj7
September and October 2022
Photo Credit: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Average Family: September 23-October 9
BHCT's 2022-2023 season opens with Larissa FastHorse's play, Average Family. Average Family depicts a reality TV show featuring two families—one Indigenous, the other White—whose members are challenged to live for a summer with only the materials that would have been accessible to them in the early nineteenth century. This dark comedy conveys the marginalization of Indigenous people in a growing America while also pointing to their erasure from American history.
FastHorse will engage BHCT audiences with a playwriting workshop and talkback.
BHCT's 2022-2023 season opens with Larissa FastHorse's play, Average Family. Average Family depicts a reality TV show featuring two families—one Indigenous, the other White—whose members are challenged to live for a summer with only the materials that would have been accessible to them in the early nineteenth century. This dark comedy conveys the marginalization of Indigenous people in a growing America while also pointing to their erasure from American history.
FastHorse will engage BHCT audiences with a playwriting workshop and talkback.
Youth Workshop (October)
Cornerstone Theater and Larissa FastHorse will host a "youth workshop" focusing on using theater as a form of creative expression and life skill-building. Members of BHCT's Cherry Street (past and present) as well as indigenous youth will be invited to the program.
Cornerstone Theater and Larissa FastHorse will host a "youth workshop" focusing on using theater as a form of creative expression and life skill-building. Members of BHCT's Cherry Street (past and present) as well as indigenous youth will be invited to the program.
April 2023
Photo Credit: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
What Would Crazy Horse Do? Public Reading in the Community
Set today, the play is about two Native Americans who are facing the extinction of their tribe while the first female leader of the KKK is poised to bring a gentler version of the Klan into the limelight. 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. When the two groups are brought together, they find that sometimes they are asking the same questions. When is race separation racism? And when is it essential preservation? It’s a question both sides need to answer before it is too late.
Set today, the play is about two Native Americans who are facing the extinction of their tribe while the first female leader of the KKK is poised to bring a gentler version of the Klan into the limelight. 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. When the two groups are brought together, they find that sometimes they are asking the same questions. When is race separation racism? And when is it essential preservation? It’s a question both sides need to answer before it is too late.
Images from Kansas City Rep (2016) Performance
Director: Sam Pinkleton | Playwright: Larissa FastHorse | Scenic Design: Antje Ellermann | Costume Design: Gretchen Halle | Lighting Design: Michelle Harvey | Sound Design: Stowe Nelwon | Production Stage Manager: April Elizabeth Brewer
Cast: Amy Attaway, Christopher Reed Brown, Jason Chanos and Roseanne Supernault
Director: Sam Pinkleton | Playwright: Larissa FastHorse | Scenic Design: Antje Ellermann | Costume Design: Gretchen Halle | Lighting Design: Michelle Harvey | Sound Design: Stowe Nelwon | Production Stage Manager: April Elizabeth Brewer
Cast: Amy Attaway, Christopher Reed Brown, Jason Chanos and Roseanne Supernault
Established in 1966 and funded by the State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts, the South Dakota Arts Council serves South Dakotans and their communities through the arts. Recognizing the importance of creativity in the lives of all South Dakotans, the Council makes quality arts accessible throughout the state by providing grants, services, and information to artists, arts organizations, schools, and the public.