“The Thanksgiving Play” debuts today, Oct. 4 at 5 p.m. in the Ruth Taylor Fine Arts Center Attic Theater. The play is free, about 75 minutes long, requires no tickets and is available to anyone in the San Antonio community.
The production plays at seven showings: Oct. 4 and 5 at 8 p.m., Oct. 6 at 2:30 p.m., Oct. 9 and 10 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 11 and 12 at 8 p.m., where audiences can attend on a first-come-first-serve basis. Nathan Stith, associate professor and director of “The Thanksgiving Play,” said the play follows four white characters and is set in a high school drama class.
“It is about a group of teaching artists who are trying to produce a politically correct, historically accurate Thanksgiving play for elementary school students. So it is an impossible task,” Stith said. “The play is really a satire of white wokeism, American myth-making, sort of poking fun at the white enlightened characters who think they have all the answers.”
Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse, the first known female Native American playwright to have a play produced on Broadway, wrote “The Thanksgiving Play,” which debuted on Broadway in 2023 but is not the first play FastHorse has written. However, most of her plays feature Native American characters, which many producers considered a barrier to Broadway production.
“Theaters around the country were saying they don’t have any Native American actors to play these parts — not true, but that’s what they were saying,” Stith said. “So, she wrote this play in kind of a subversive way to say, ‘I still want to address these issues and talk about these things, but if you’re not going to produce my play with Native American characters, I’m just going to fill it with white characters and have the same kind of conversation.’”
Mia McCracken, sophomore undecided major, plays the role of Alicia, an airheaded actress from Los Angeles who is mistakenly hired as a Native American mouthpiece for the play when, in reality, she is white. McCracken said the rehearsal process has been fun, and she has enjoyed bonding with the rest of the cast.
“When I did my plays in high school, it was more like we were told where to go, like, hold your hand through it. Here, they are just kind of like, ‘Okay, do it,’” McCracken said. “I think it helps you kind of feel for it yourself. … It makes me a little nervous at first, but I like it ultimately better. But he’s [Stith] really nice and very supportive.”
Arwen Loxsom, sophomore theater major, plays the character Logan, a high school theater director with a petition with 300 parent signatures calling for her job termination. Consequently, Logan attempts to regain her reputation throughout the play. Loxsom said they look forward to opening night and seeing how the audience responds.
“I feel like how we are promoting it, people might not get the idea of what it’s like. I think people are in for a treat,” Loxsom said. “There’s a kind of laughter; it is that laugh when people start laughing, and they’re scared they shouldn’t be laughing. So I’m excited to see when we get those kinds of laughs.”
Luke Schiesser, sophomore history major and cast member, plays the character of Jaxton, a self-proclaimed woke, yoga-loving actor. This will be Schiesser’s first performance in a Trinity University main stage production.
“Jaxton is basically the embodiment of the white woke world. Larissa FastHorse, the playwright, wrote this as a critique of white wokeism, specifically performative wokeism. Where you’re saying the right things … but you’re not actually,” Schiesser said. “It’s just all a facade, it’s all a show. … You’re not actually making stuff change.”
Though a comedy, Schiesser said “The Thanksgiving Play” will feature gore and offensive humor. Stith said these features are meant to make people think, a sentiment the audience should be mindful of while watching.
“I think that this is a really well-crafted play. … There’s going to be a lot of surprises and things that maybe you’re not expecting, even just having read this article written or about the play, and some things that may be shocking and surprising to you and maybe make you feel a little uncomfortable, that’s okay,” Stith said.
