NewsSubscribe

Tuesday, November 10, 2020, 7 p.m. ET, audiences are invited to observe a special conversation with acclaimed playwright Larissa FastHorse of the Sicangu Lakota nation, as she engages with UMass students. She will address her experience of writing for and being presented by predominantly white regional theaters and her commitment to creating theater by and for Native audiences; two very separate endeavors in theater today. 

UMass Amherst alum Jasmine Rochelle-Goodspeed of the Nipmuc nation will open the event by sharing filmed excerpts from her play 1675, a musical about King Philip’s War, centering on the tragedy of Deer Island, where hundreds of Native Americans were sent, with most eventually perishing. 

UMass Theater professor Dr. Priscilla Page, of Wiyot heritage, will facilitate the event. Students in Dr. Page’s Contemporary Native American Performance class will be in conversation with FastHorse and Rochelle-Goodspeed; audience members will also be invited to ask questions.

This Fine Arts Center event is co-presented by WAM Theatre Company, which is presenting FastHorse's Thanksgiving Play later this year, and the UMass Department of Theater. Register online through the Fine Arts Center website www.fineartscenter.com.

The UMass Fine Arts Center is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts through the New England Arts Resilience Fund, part of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund, an initiative of the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with major funding from the federal CARES Act from the National Endowment for the Arts.