The Thanksgiving Play- Larissa Fasthorse
The Warehouse Theatre, November 2019
Creative
Director: Kerrie Seymour
Lighting Designer: Montana Kern
Costume Designer: Katie Carillo
Set Designer: David Hartmann
Cast
Logan: Kelly Strandemo
Caden: Matt Reece
Jaxton: Kyle Brumley
Alicia: Hannah Morris
1st pass
Four Fat Turkeys
Fastest pass
The Thanksgiving Play alternates between scenes of its main storyline, described as "...four 'woke' teaching artists trying to make a culturally sensitive Thanksgiving play for children for Native American Heritage Month" and re-enactments by the same actors of particularly insensitive performances taken from real-life stories of schools across the country. Much of my design involved music and sound effects for these interstitial scenes.
​
"(Perhaps as turkeys, perhaps not. Can be sung or recited.)
ACTOR: A selection from songsforteachers.org.
ALL: FOUR LITTLE TURKEYS STANDING IN A ROW."
​
For one of these scenes, the actors go directly from their "real" characters to playing children dressed as turkeys reciting this song. To lead us into this scene, I recorded an instrumental version of the tune on bass and piano that got faster each time it went through the progression, as if a teacher were off stage playing the song to hurry the "children" into their spots.
A High-School Production
For this interstitial scene, our inspiration was a high school theatre program hoping to be "edgy" - black leather, sunglasses, flashlights.
​
"(The agitprop version. Don't be too earnest, let the appropriation fly.)
ACTOR: Applying social responsibility and ethics to a classroom Thanksgiving.
ALL:
Where?
Plymouth, Massachusetts.
When?
Thanksgiving, 1997."
​
Transitioning into this scene, and at key moments throughout, versions of this drum loop would play while the actors, moving through their delightfully awkward choreography to the beat, rotated into their next position.
​
Production Photos by Wallace Krebs.