Larissa FastHorse


Larissa FastHorse is a Native American playwright and choreographer based in Santa Monica. FastHorse grew up in South Dakota, where she began her career as a ballet dancer and choreographer but was forced into an early retirement after ten years of dancing due to an injury. Returning to an early interest in writing, she became involved in Native American drama, especially the Native American film community. Later she began writing and directing her own plays, several of which are published through Samuel French and Dramatic Publishing. With playwright and performer Ty Defoe, FastHorse co-founded Indigenous Direction, a "a consulting firm that helps organizations and individuals who want to create accurate work by, for and with Indigenous peoples." Indigenous Direction's clients include the Guthrie Theater. FastHorse is the vice chair of the Theatre Communications Group, which is the national organization for the American theatre that offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research, and communications.

Career

FastHorse was a delegate in 2000 to the United Nations in Geneva, where she spoke on the power film can have for Indigenous peoples. FastHorse then chose to broaden her experience and shifted from a career as a dancer and choreographer, to feature television and film development.
FastHorse worked for Universal Pictures before joining Latham Entertainment at Paramount as a creative executive; she produced two short films, The Migration and A Final Wish, before again switching focus, this time from television and film production to writing and directing.
While writing and working on many projects of her own making, FastHorse also served as a panelist for The Film and Video Fellowships which was formerly named the Rockefeller Fellowship. In addition to the Film and Video Fellowships, she has been involved with many other networks and theatre companies: she has written commissioned pieces for the Alter Theatre in San Rafael, CA; Cornerstone Theatre Company; and Native Voices at the Autry both located in Los Angeles, CA, as well as the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, MN; the Kennedy Center for Young Audiences in Washington, D.C.; and for Mountainside Theater in Cherokee, N.C. She has developed new plays with the Arizona Theatre Company, Tucson, AZ; the Center Theatre Group Writer's Workshop, Los Angeles, CA; and Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor, Berkeley, CA. Her play Urban Rez, created with Cornerstone Theater, portrays the experience of Indigenous people in Los Angeles County, home to the U.S.'s second-largest Indigenous population. The Thanksgiving Play was begun with a fellowship from the Guthrie Theater and developed through readings including at DC's Center Stage Play Lab in 2016; it was produced by Artists Repertory Theatre in Oregon in April 2018. Both The Thanksgiving Play in 2017 and What Would Crazy Horse Do? in 2014 were featured on the annual "Kilroys' List" of "recommended un- and underproduced new plays by female and trans authors of color." What Would Crazy Horse Do?, a comedy inspired by historical interest by the KKK in collaborations with Indigenous groups, was featured in the Lilly Awards' 2015 reading series with performers Emily Bergl, Jesse Perez, and Madeline Sayet. The Thanksgiving Play also secured FastHorse's off-Broadway playwright debut, with an October 2018 production announced by Playwrights Horizons, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel and starring Margo Seibert, Jennifer Bareilles, Jeffrey Bean, and Greg Keller.
As part of her production contract as a playwright, FastHorse requires that the theatre hire at least one other Indigenous artist for the production, and showcase at least one other Indigenous artist's work in the building.

Honors and awards

Choreography

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