Lakota playwright Larissa FastHorse wins prestigious ‘Genius’ grant
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
Indianz.Com
Larissa FastHorse, a citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, has won a prestigious fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, an award popularly known as a “genius grant.”
FastHorse is being recognized for her work in the arts. She is a playwright who advocates for accurate representation of Native peoples.
“A member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, FastHorse combines a keen sense of satire and facility with dramatic forms in plays that are funny, incisive, and, at times, deeply unsettling for audiences faced with the realities of Native Americans’ experience in the United States,” the MacArthur Foundation states.

In her own words: Larissa FastHorse
From the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation:
“When I start a play, I don’t have a preordained idea of what form it should take or the point of the story or how it ends. Sometimes the community I am working with determines those things, sometimes it is up to me. Either way, I write the first draft of the script very quickly, allowing the characters to say and do what they want. One time, without warning, my favorite character killed himself. I burst into tears at the shock. Then my job was to embed that personal, visceral experience into the action of the script. That’s where the real work happens in draft after draft, crafting that emotional journey underneath the action, a roller coaster ride hidden in plain sight. But when it works and I watch an entire audience gasp or laugh or cry together, it’s magic. It’s why we need theater.”
“When I start a play, I don’t have a preordained idea of what form it should take or the point of the story or how it ends. Sometimes the community I am working with determines those things, sometimes it is up to me. Either way, I write the first draft of the script very quickly, allowing the characters to say and do what they want. One time, without warning, my favorite character killed himself. I burst into tears at the shock. Then my job was to embed that personal, visceral experience into the action of the script. That’s where the real work happens in draft after draft, crafting that emotional journey underneath the action, a roller coaster ride hidden in plain sight. But when it works and I watch an entire audience gasp or laugh or cry together, it’s magic. It’s why we need theater.”

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