Groundbreaking play by Native American writer debuts in OKC over the holidays

With a turn of the hips that was completely inappropriate for a children’s show in which his character was supposed to be the lead. Paxton Cleaver draws out a promising phrase about honoring and recognizing strength sacral chakra one of his colleagues, played by Kerinn Eckenrode.

“That’s enough,” he says. director Alice Reaganinterrupting a recent rehearsal to give the actor some notes on blocking a scene to make it perhaps even more inappropriate.

“This is so bad,” Cleaver says with a laugh as he returns to another on-stage workout, prompting his fellow performers to release the laughter they’ve been holding in.

Cast and crew Oklahoma City Repertory Theaterproduction “A Play for Thanksgiving” I hope that viewers who watch the show will also be unable to stop laughing, even if it means cackling in discomfort.

“I want people to know that they have permission from the actors and the creative team to laugh,” Eckenrode said, taking a break after rehearsal. “There were times when I read the script and thought, ‘This is really funny, but I almost feel guilty… for laughing.’ But I think it’s okay to laugh and I think it was Larisa FastHorseintention”.

With “The Thanksgiving Play” FastHorsewho from Sikangu Lakota Nation in South Dakota last year became the first female Native American playwright to produce a play on Broadway. OKC Rep opens his Season 2024-2025which consists entirely of regional premieres, with the popular holiday comedy FastHorse about good intentions whimsically filled with absurd assumptions.

What is the play “Thanksgiving” about?

In the racy satire FastHorse, a troupe of white, well-meaning, finally woke teaching artists attempt to create an elementary school. Thanksgiving Day competition that somehow manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month. Popular comedy created Theater Communications Group list 10 most popular plays in American Theater in the 2023-2024 season.

IN NPR 2023 Interview, FastHorse described the history of Thanksgiving as “a wild mess.”

“It talks about everything I wanted to touch on in the context of the contemporary indigenous experience,” FastHorse told NPR about “The Thanksgiving Play.” “It really shows us what it’s like to be us. Like what it’s like to be yourself in these rooms that are predominantly white and predominantly non-Indigenous in every sense.”

An award-winning professional regional theaterOKC Representative will arrange “A Play for Thanksgiving” for the first time in the state formerly known as Indian Territory. Performances will run from November 7 to 17 at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center’s Te Ata Theater, a venue named after eminent Chickasaw storyteller.

“Oklahoma has a special connection to Native American history… So I think our audience brings an extra level of awareness that New York audiences on Broadway may not have had,” the OKC actor said. Ronn Burton.

“Hopefully there will be some Native Americans in our audience because we tend to have a larger Native population than other places. But people of any nationality, when they come to see the show, hopefully they’ll have a little more awareness of the overall indigenous culture here – and therefore be able to see all the unintentional atrocities these four well-intentioned but bumbling people commit along the way “

How is OKC Repertory Theater collaborating with the First American Museum to produce “The Thanksgiving Play”?

“The Thanksgiving Play” centers on four theater artists: Logan (Christine Mayland Perkins) a high school drama teacher who decided to create a culturally sensitive Thanksgiving play; Caden (Burton), an elementary school teacher determined to make the series historically accurate, no matter the cost; Jaxton (Cleaver), Logan’s yoga instructor and actor boyfriend who is politically correct to the extreme; and Alicia (Eckenrode), a professional actress hired to bring authenticity to the production.

“We need to go to the Museum of the First Americans.” Indigenous Peoples Day as the beginning of our rehearsal. It’s a wonderful museum, and it was really helpful to see all the information in one place, compiled by the people it’s about,” said Perkins, who lives in Chicago and learned about the OKC audition while visiting family in the subway and decided to audition for the show .

Emily Komisar, The OKC Rep’s new executive artistic director said the theater is also partnering with the Oklahoma City museum on the production in other ways.

“We build a relationship with FAM by not just visiting the museum, but we gave FAM one of our preview evenings to invite whoever they wanted to invite. This way they attract a lot of their members,” Komisar said.

OKC Theater staff is also working to bring in Native American performers for preview performances called Rallies of representatives.

When they see the performance Jib said he hopes local audiences can watch Thanksgiving Day and other aspects of American life they take for granted in new ways—and hopefully, they’ll do it in between hearty laughs.

” First American Museum right here. … Eat Choctaw Cultural Centerr. There is so much rich culture and things to understand and take from Oklahoma. But even for people who live here like me, I can tell you about the history of Oklahoma, but I can’t tell you much about Native American culture. I really learned a lot working on this show,” Cleaver said.

“It’s really uncomfortable for people to think about, ‘The whole reason I’m here and have this comfortable lifestyle where… I don’t have to fear any persecution, it’s all because of genocide.’ The reason I have all these things is because something terrible happened a long time ago.” It’s really hard to come to terms with that – and that’s great fodder for a silly play because it opens up the possibility of talking about it.”

The Norman actor said playing a character with a name and some traits similar to his own in no way lessens his discomfort with “The Thanksgiving Play.”

“One of our props is a canvas bag from the Oklahoma Contemporary Art Center, and the bag that I carry with me every day that contains all my stuff is exactly the same… I have Nalgene a water bottle that I drink from every day. And I have a prop for Jackson—a different color Nalgene water bottle, but with the same stickers,” Cleaver laughs.

“I’m probably kinder than him, but I always fall into the same traps as him, because I’m a white man and I don’t understand what it’s like to not really be that way… The people of Oklahoma City are much more like Logan and Jackson , than they imagine, and I think it’ll be a fun little nudge in the side, like, “Hey, we could all probably be better.”