Dorset Theatre Festival to Wrap Up 46th Season With THE THANKSGIVING PLAY

Dorset Theatre Festival will conclude its 46th Season with Larissa FastHorse’s hilarious and groundbreaking satire, The Thanksgiving Play, directed by Raz Golden, beginning performances at the Dorset Playhouse on September 1, 2023. 

The cast for The Thanksgiving Play will feature actors Kate MacCluggage, who recently co-starred in the feature film version of Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; Stephen Stocking, who was recently featured in the Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman and seen in Dorset’s 2019 World Premiere of Mrs. Christie; Isabel Pask; and Craig Wesley Divino.

The play is one of the country's most-produced comedies, and Dorset Theatre Festival’s upcoming production follows an acclaimed Broadway run this past spring. “So clever is FastHorse’s setup, and so thorough her twisting of the knife of woke logic,” said the New York Times.

In The Thanksgiving Play, an undeterred elementary school teacher desperately attempts to devise a pageant about the first Thanksgiving - one that challenges stereotypes, meets all the requirements of a Native American Heritage Month grant, and pacifies the parents. Wanting to avoid any un-PC missteps, three “woke” white thespians quickly find themselves sabotaged by myth, confounded by history, and drawn into a hysterical roast of the politics of entertainment and well-meaning political correctness alike. 

Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation) is a 2020 MacArthur Fellow, award-winning writer/choreographer, and co-founder of Indigenous Direction, the nation’s leading consulting company for Indigenous arts and audiences. She is the first Native American woman known to have a play produced on Broadway.

The Festival also welcomes back Raz Golden to direct after his acclaimed World Premiere production of Queen of the Night by travis tate during Dorset’s 2021 outdoor season at the Southern Vermont Arts Center. 

"As an artist obsessed with how Americans tell the stories of our past, The Thanksgiving Play has been a dream of mine to work on. The play dissects the foundational American myth of the 'First Thanksgiving' and reconstructs it in both familiar and jarring ways. Not to mention, it's very, very funny," said Raz Golden, director of The Thanksgiving Play.

Golden is joined by Sasha Schwartz as scenic designer, April Hickman as costume designer, Krista Smith as lighting designer, Megumi Katayama as sound designer, and Joey Moro as projection designer. The casting director is Judy Bowman, CSA, and Julia Bates is the production stage manager. 

Ticket packages and single tickets are available now. More information is available on Dorset’s website, www.dorsettheatrefestival.org.

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The box office may be reached by calling (802) 867-2223 ext. 101, Wednesday through Saturday, 12 – 6 pm and Sunday 12 - 4 pm. For more information, or to purchase subscriptions and tickets online, visit www.dorsettheatrefestival.org. 

Dorset Theatre Festival is committed to the ongoing work and practice of making our theatre a place accessible to everyone, and continues to offer free and reduced-cost ticket programs to members of the community. Requests for accessible tickets (starting at $0) can be made online or by contacting the box office.

Support for Dorset Theatre Festival is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vermont Arts Council, the Shubert Foundation, the Rodgers Family Foundation, the James H. and Irene M. Hunter Charitable Trust, and the members of the Dorset Theatre Festival World Premiere Circle. 

The Thanksgiving Play is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com. 

ABOUT DORSET THEATRE FESTIVAL

Now in its 46th year, Dorset Theatre Festival produces a professional Main Stage season at the historic Dorset Playhouse in Dorset, VT, highlighting both new plays and classic works. Enlightening, entertaining, and inspiring audiences since 1977, the Festival’s annual celebration of great plays runs June through September and features top theatre-makers from around the country. 

Increasingly known for high-quality world and regional premiere productions, in 2017 the Boston Globe dubbed the Festival, “Just north of the Berkshires, a new destination for playwrights.” In addition to Main Stage productions of new plays, the Festival’s new play development programs showcase works-in-progress and provide the Southern Vermont region an opportunity to play a key role in the evolution of new plays in consideration for future productions at the Festival and beyond. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT

WWW.DORSETTHEATREFESTIVAL.ORG

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