Moonbox’s  “The Thanksgiving Play”  Serves Up Lukewarm Fare

Cast of Moonbox’s “The Thanksgiving Play”. Photo Credit – Sharman Altshuler

By Michele Markarian

“The Thanksgiving Play” by Larissa Fasthorse. Directed by Tara Moses. Presented by Moonbox Productions, One Arrow Street, Cambridge, through December 15.

“The Thanksgiving Play,” the author of whom is the first Native woman to be produced on Broadway, is the perfect satire for the times. A well-intentioned white couple, Logan and Jaxton (Jasmine Goodspeed and Johnny Gordon, respectively), are planning on writing and staging a Thanksgiving play for an elementary school, which will hopefully defy all of the awful, Native-canceling and falsehoods traditionally associated with the holiday and present a more truthful history. Logan has even gone so far as to hire a woman who she thinks is a Native actress, Alicia (Marisa Diamond) to help with script development. A starstruck teacher from another school, Caden (Ohad Ashkenazi), has volunteered to join the project, as he is impressed with the marginal credentials of Logan and Jaxton and considers it a privilege to work with them.  Despite their good intentions, the four characters can’t conceal their cultural biases or the fact that none of them have any clue on how to think outside their own privilege. The satire lies in their earnestness and their frustration with the burgeoning knowledge that they really don’t – and can’t – get it.  The action is punctuated by the actors, as children, singing culturally insensitive Thanksgiving songs that Fasthorse culled from real sources. 

Read more “Moonbox’s  “The Thanksgiving Play”  Serves Up Lukewarm Fare”

Lyric’s ‘The Thanksgiving Play’ a Cornucopia Overflowing with Clever Theatrical Treats

(Jesse Hinson, Barlow Adamson, Grace Experience and Amanda Collins in ‘The Thanksgiving Play’ at Lyric Stage Company of Boston. Photos: Glenn Perry)

by Linda Chin


The Thanksgiving Play – Written by Larissa FastHorse; Directed by Scott Edmiston; Scenic Design by Janie E. Howland; Sound Design/Original Music by Dewey Dellay; Costume Design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt; Lighting Design by Karen Perlow. Presented by Lyric Stage Company, 140 Clarendon St., Boston through Nov. 10

In the opening scene of The Thanksgiving Play, now being presented at the Lyric Stage, the first of several children’s Thanksgiving limericks and songs within the play starts with verse, sung by a single white male Pilgrim (Barlow Adamson) to the familiar tune of the “Twelve Days of Christmas.”


On the fourth day of Thanksgiving, the natives gave to me –
4 Cornucopias,
3 Chief headdresses,
2 turkey gobblers and,
A pumpki-in in a pumpkin patch.

Read more “Lyric’s ‘The Thanksgiving Play’ a Cornucopia Overflowing with Clever Theatrical Treats”