Larissa FastHorse

Larissa FastHorse is a Native American (Sicangu Lakota) playwright and choreographer based in Santa Monica, California. In 2023, she became the first known female Native American playwright produced on Broadway with The Thanksgiving Play at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater.^[1][2] That same year, she joined Arizona State University as a professor of practice in the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Department of English with long-time collaborators, Michael John Garcés and Ty Defoe.^[3] In 2024, Peter Pan: The Broadway Musical with an adapted book by FastHorse began an international tour.^[4]

FastHorse grew up in South Dakota,^[5][6] where she began her career as a ballet dancer and choreographer but was forced into retirement after ten years of dancing^[7] due to an injury.^[8] Returning to an early interest in writing, she became involved in Native American drama, especially the Native American film community.^[7][9] Later she began writing and directing her own plays, several of which are published through Samuel French (a Concord Theatricals Company) and Dramatic Publishing.^[8][10] With playwright and performer Ty Defoe, FastHorse co-founded Indigenous Direction, a "consulting firm that helps organizations and individuals who want to create accurate work by, for, and with Indigenous peoples."^[11] Indigenous Direction's clients include Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade^[12][13] and the Guthrie Theater.^[14] FastHorse is a past vice chair of the Theatre Communications Group, a service organization for professional non-profit American theatre,^[15] and current vice chair of the Board of Directors for Playwrights Horizons.