Larissa FastHorse facts for kids

Larissa FastHorse is a talented writer and choreographer from the Sicangu Lakota people, a Native American tribe. She lives in Santa Monica, California. In 2023, she made history as the first known female Native American playwright to have a play produced on Broadway. This play was called The Thanksgiving Play and was shown at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater.

In 2023, she also became a professor at Arizona State University. She joined the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Department of English. She works there with her long-time friends, Michael John Garcés and Ty Defoe. In 2024, a new version of Peter Pan: The Broadway Musical began touring internationally. Larissa FastHorse wrote the adapted story for this show.

FastHorse grew up in South Dakota. She started her career as a ballet dancer and choreographer. After ten years, an injury made her stop dancing. She then went back to her early love of writing. She became very involved in Native American drama and the Native American film community. Later, she began writing and directing her own plays. Many of her plays are published.

With playwright and performer Ty Defoe, FastHorse co-founded Indigenous Direction. This company helps groups and people create accurate work about, for, and with Indigenous peoples. Indigenous Direction has worked with clients like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Guthrie Theater. FastHorse has also served on the boards of important theater organizations.

Larissa FastHorse's Career

In 2000, FastHorse was a delegate at the United Nations in Geneva. She spoke about how movies can help Indigenous peoples. After this, FastHorse changed her career from dancing to working in television, film, and theater.

Community Plays and Broadway Success

FastHorse created three "community engaged" plays with Michael John Garcés and Cornerstone Theater Company. These plays involve the community in their creation.

• The first play was Urban Rez. It showed the experiences of Indigenous people living in Los Angeles County. This area has the second-largest Indigenous population in the U.S.
• The second project, Native Nation, was the biggest Indigenous theater production ever in American theater. More than 400 Native artists were part of the shows.
• The third play was Wicoun. FastHorse said it explored the strength, beauty, humor, and lasting culture, language, and identity of the Northern Plains Indigenous people.

FastHorse's way of including Indigenous tribes in her work is called "radical inclusion." This process has earned her many important national arts grants.

In the 2022-23 theater season, FastHorse made her Broadway debut with her funny play The Thanksgiving Play. This made her the first female Native American playwright to have a play on Broadway in 2023. The play started as a fellowship project at the Guthrie Theater. It was developed through many readings and was first produced in Oregon in 2018. It then had its off-Broadway debut in October 2018. The Thanksgiving Play has been one of the top ten most produced plays in America since 2019. FastHorse is the first Native American playwright to be on that list. She was also one of the top twenty most produced playwrights in the 2023-24 season.

Both The Thanksgiving Play (in 2017) and FastHorse’s play What Would Crazy Horse Do? (in 2014) were featured on the annual "Kilroys' List". This list recommends new plays by female and trans authors of color that are not often produced. What Would Crazy Horse Do? is a comedy inspired by real events. It was featured in a reading series in 2015 with actors like Emily Bergl and Madeline Sayet.

Other Projects and Collaborations

Some of FastHorse's other recent projects include a new show for The Guthrie called For The People. She also worked on a new version of the musical Peter Pan.

For For The People (2023) at The Guthrie, FastHorse used a mix of community involvement and traditional play development. The rehearsal room was open for community feedback.

FastHorse wrote a new story for Peter Pan. This new version changes how Native Americans are shown in the play. It began an international tour in 2024. Some of FastHorse's other plays include What Would Crazy Horse Do? (KCRep), Landless and Cow Pie Bingo (AlterTheater), Average Family (Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis), Teaching Disco Square Dancing to Our Elders: a Class Presentation (Native Voices at the Autry Museum of the American West), Vanishing Point (Eagle Project), and Cherokee Family Reunion (Mountainside Theater).

FastHorse has been asked to write plays for many theaters. These include The Public, Second Stage, Center Theater Group, and the Kennedy Center for Young Audiences. Other theaters have also helped develop her plays, such as Yale Rep, The Guthrie, and Arizona Theatre Company.

In 2019, FastHorse started working in film and television. She developed a series for Freeform, a movie for Disney Channel, and a series for NBC. Since then, she has worked on projects for Apple TV+, Dreamworks, and Netflix. Before theater, FastHorse trained as a writer through programs like Sundance Native Feature Fellow and Fox Diversity Fellow. She also produced two short films: The Migration (2008) and A Final Wish (2002).

In 2020, FastHorse’s company, Indigenous Direction (with Ty Defoe), created the first land acknowledgement for national television. This was for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. A land acknowledgement is a statement that recognizes the Indigenous peoples as the original stewards of the land. Indigenous Direction also works with other clients like Roundabout Theater Company and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

As a playwright, FastHorse asks theaters that produce her work to hire at least one other Indigenous artist for the show. She also asks them to feature at least one other Indigenous artist's work in the building.

Honors and Awards

• MacArthur Fellows Program, Class of 2020
• PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award, 2019
• PEN Center USA Literary Award for Drama, 2016
• Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, 2016-2018
• Center Stage "Wright Now Play Later" Project, 2016
• Joe Dowling Annaghmakerrig Fellowship Award, 2015-2016
• Directors Lab West, 2015
• AATE Distinguished Play Award, 2012
• Center Theatre Group L.A. Writers' Workshop, 2011-2012
• Speaker and Workshop Leader, South Dakota Festival of Books, 2011
• National Endowment for the Arts Distinguished New Play Development Grant, 2010
• William Inge Center for the Arts Playwriting Residency, 2009
• Speaker, International Colloquium of Theatre for Young People, Mexico City, 2009
• Featured US playwright, ASSITEJ World Congress, Australia, 2008
• National Geographic Seed Grant, 2007
• Aurand Harris Fellowship, Children's Theatre Foundation of America, 2007
• ABC / IAIA TV Writer’s Track Program, 2007
• Fox TV Writers Initiative Fellow, 2008-2009 / 2005-2006
• Fellowship, Fox Diversity Writer's Initiative Programs, 2006
• Inscribed Delegate, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, 2000
• Sundance Institute-Ford Foundation Fellowship
• Two for New Works Grant
• Guggenheim Fellowship, 2025

Television and Film Credits

• Queen of America, NBCUniversal, 2021
• Buffalo County, co-writer with Courtney Hoffman at Must, 2020
• The Line (pilot; Fox)
• Lakota Falls (pilot; Teen Nick)

Theatre Credits

Choreography and Direction

• Our Voices Will Be Heard, Perseverance Theater, Juneau/Anchorage, AK, 2016
• South Pass, Jackson Center for the Arts, Jackson, WY, 2013
• Unto These Hills, Mountainside Theatre, Cherokee, NC, 2008-2011

Writing

• Fancy Dancer, in development
• Fake It Until You Make It (2025)
• The Thanksgiving Play (2023)
• Wicoun (2023)
• Native Nation (2019)
• Cow Pie Bingo (2018)
• What Would Crazy Horse Do? (2017)
• Urban Rez (2016)
• Allies – My America Too (2015)
• Landless (2015)
• Cherokee Family Reunion (2012)
• Hunka (2012)
• A Dancing People (2011)
• Different Does Not Mean The Same (2009)
• Serra Springs (2008)
• Teaching Disco Square Dancing to Our Elders: A Class Presentation (2008)
• Average Family (2007)

Personal Life

FastHorse is a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of the Lakota people. She lives in Santa Monica with her husband, who is a sculptor named Edd Hogan.