Preview
Identifier
ThanksgivingPlaybill_Page_05
Creation Date
12-10-2025
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Theatre and Performance Studies
Description
FROM THE DIRECTOR - Dallas Martinez
Welcome. The Thanksgiving Play is, first and last, a comedy. We laugh together, then we listen a little closer. This play does not make light of the historic and ongoing harm faced by Native peoples. The joke is on us. We watch four well-meaning adults try to make a respectful school Thanksgiving show and trip over their own blind spots. It is all right to laugh at ourselves. Laughter makes room for learning, and it helps us try again with more care.
Larissa FastHorse sets the story in a simple classroom/rehearsal room. The humor springs from real talk, real stumbles, and the truth of how people work together. Between scenes, you will hear the classroom tunes many of us learned as children. They bring back warm memories, and they remind us that some stories were simplified or left out. We use them to add context, not to mock. Learning does not stop after childhood.
We are not here to teach a lesson about Native peoples. We are here to take a clear look at ourselves and the systems we work in. You will see careful words meet old habits. You will see mixed results and honest effort. You will hear genuine laughs. Join us in a spirit of generosity as these four collaborators stumble, regroup, and keep trying to do better.
My thanks to the cast and crew for their heart, craft, and insight as we explored our own understandings of Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Dallas Martinez
Publisher
Arkansas State University
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Keywords
thanksgiving, comedy, Indigenous people, Native American
