Trio of Indigenous plays to debut at upcoming book launch

On a crisp October evening, Indigenous stories will take center stage at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus. 

The event, an advance book launch and reading of “Native Nation Project,” written by ASU faculty members and playwrights Larissa FastHorse and Michael John Garcés, promises to be a living, breathing celebration of community storytelling.

Event details

“Native Nation Project“
6:30 p.m., Oct. 20
Labriola National American Indian Data Center
Hayden Library, Tempe campus

“Native Nation Project,” which publishes next month, gathers three groundbreaking plays created by FastHorse and Garcés in collaboration with Indigenous communities across the United States. The stories reflect on land, identity and the ongoing pulse of Indigenous resilience. 

The trio of works — “Urban Rez,” “Native Nation” and “Wičoun” — each originated from years of conversations, trust-building and immersive artistic exchanges with Native people in Los Angeles, Arizona and the Great Plains. The result is a trilogy of theatrical works that confront the historical erasure of Indigenous voices while centering the humor, strength and sovereignty that define them.

Larissa FastHorse

FastHorse, a member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation and a 2020 MacArthur Fellow, has long used theater as a tool of reclamation. It practically drives every page of “Native Nation Project,” which documents over a decade of collaboration and cultural exchange. 

The plays were born from genuine relationships built through listening, shared meals and creative partnerships that lasted years.

The Arizona chapter of this journey began in 2019, when ASU Gammage produced “Native Nation” as a large-scale, immersive performance developed with 17 tribal nations across Arizona. Audience members didn’t just watch; they participated, walking among scenes that unfolded around them in parks, parking lots and open spaces. The effect turned spectators into witnesses.

Michael John Garcés

This month, that spirit returns to ASU. FastHorse and Garcés will be joined by ASU English Professor of Practice Ty Defoe, who will moderate a discussion following live readings by nearly 20 original cast members and current ASU students. 

The 90-minute event will offer a glimpse into how “Native Nation Project” continues to evolve by bridging campus, community and culture. Books will be available for purchase and signing, with an informal reception to follow. The evening is also part of ASU’s Humanities Week.

“We’ve been at this for 13 years,” said FastHorse, a professor of practice in English. “These plays belong to the people who helped create them. Every performance, every conversation, is a continuation.”

ASU News spoke with FastHorse about “Native Nation Project” and why Indigenous communities need to tell their stories in their own voices.

Question: I love the premise of this book — going into Native American communities and developing plays with them. How did that idea come about?

Answer: It actually started with my partner, Michael John Garcés. I don’t do this work alone — we’re full collaborators. Michael was the artistic director of Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles, which is known for creating work in and with communities. He commissioned me to write a play for Cornerstone, and I said, “Well, I’d love to work with the local Indigenous community and make that the focus.”

So we started working together on that play, and the partnership just kept growing from there. Every step since has been a shared effort between us.

Q: Was there ever any hesitation or trust issues from the communities you worked with? How did you address that?

A: Oh, absolutely — all the time. Native people are very aware, and others are beginning to understand, that Western arts have long functioned like an extraction industry: People come into Indigenous communities, take what’s interesting, then leave and profit from it. That’s not what we wanted to do, but it took time to prove it.

We spend a minimum of two years in each community — that’s actually our shortest timeline, which happened in Arizona when we partnered with ASU Gammage. ASU already had a great relationship with Native nations, which helped build trust. But in California and South Dakota — even though I’m from there — it took longer.

We had to show that we weren’t there to extract stories, but to collaborate, to stay and to have the community decide how their stories were presented and where. We also raised money to ensure that community members were paid for creating their own art within the theater framework.

Q: What are the names of the plays, and which communities are they connected to?

A: The first play was “Urban Rez,” which focused on the Indigenous peoples of the Los Angeles Basin. We started with the Tongva people, the original caretakers of that area, and expanded to include others like the Cahuilla, Chumash and Kumeyaay — as well as many Indigenous people who now live in LA because of federal relocation programs. There are no federally recognized tribes in Los Angeles or Orange County, so we describe the play as representing “the Indigenous people currently living in the LA Basin.”

The second play was “Native Nation,” which we developed in Arizona. We worked with about 16 or 17 of the 23 tribal nations in the state, and always by invitation. We never show up uninvited; we reach out, explain what we do and only go where communities want us there.

The third play, “Wičoun,” was created with Lakota, Dakota and Nakota communities in the Great Plains — South Dakota, North Dakota and beyond. We’ve now worked with people on 10 different reservations for that project.

Q: In what ways does “Native Nation” use immersive theater to challenge the erasure of Indigenous people from American culture? How does this approach affect audiences differently from traditional theater?

A: The immersive aspect is crucial. What we’re doing now, through the “Native Nation Project,” continues the process of these first three plays with support from the Mellon Foundation.

Each project looks different depending on the community, because we always start by asking: “What do you want to share, and how do you want to be seen?”

More from the Labriola Center

Book Award Lecture featuring Bethany Hughes
Noon, Oct. 23
Labriola National American Indian Data Center
Hayden Library, Tempe campus

Immersive theater lets audiences come face to face with Native people and stories — literally walking alongside them, seeing them as human beings rather than abstract cultural symbols. Western art often places Indigenous cultures at a distance, sometimes on a “pedestal,” even with good intentions. We wanted to bring that experience down to earth, to eye level.

It can be uncomfortable for non-Native audiences, because they’re no longer just watching from afar because they’re standing in front of someone saying, “This is my life.” That discomfort, though, makes it more powerful and humanizing.

Q: These plays address themes like assimilation, sovereignty and sacred lands. Which theme do you think most strongly connects the three stories — and why?

A: I’d say sovereignty. It shows up differently in each work. In “Urban Rez,” the focus is on the lack of sovereignty, since the U.S. government declared many LA tribes “extinct” in the 1950s — even though, of course, those people are still there.

In “Native Nation,” Arizona tribes have strong sovereign voices, yet they continue to face challenges from dominant culture.

And in “Wičoun,” we created the play at a time when the governor of South Dakota was directly challenging tribal sovereignty — both legally and physically. So, across all three, sovereignty is the thread: whether it’s absent, powerful or under attack.

Q: Beyond struggle, your plays also celebrate Indigenous culture and resilience. What creative choices helped you strike that balance between hardship and joy?

A: The first thing every community told us was, “These plays have to be funny.” Every single one! And we agreed, completely. I’m a comedy writer by background and Michael is brilliant at directing humor. But more importantly, humor is cultural for us and not just a coping mechanism.

For years, I used to say that Native people use humor to “overcome hardship.” Then, while working in Arizona, a grandmother corrected me. She said, “Stop saying that. Humor is who we are. It’s not about survival — it’s part of our identity.”

That really stuck with me. It reminded me to stop filtering Indigenous culture through a dominant-culture lens. Humor connects all three plays as it’s integral to our storytelling, our joy and our survival.

Q: How long did it take to complete the three plays?

A: About 13 years total, from the first project to the last. We did take a break during COVID, but even then, we kept working remotely. We did this by doing storytelling and journaling workshops with youth groups when in-person meetings weren’t possible. So it’s been 13 continuous years of creating and evolving the work.

Q: Tell me about the upcoming ASU event and what the audience will experience.

A: We’re so excited about it! The book officially releases in November, but ASU is hosting an advance launch on Oct. 20. Michael and I both teach in ASU’s English department, so we arranged a special early printing just for the university. We’ll be joined by about 20 original cast members from “Native Nation” — nearly half of the original ASU Gammage cast — for a staged reading and discussion. Ty Defoe will moderate the Q&A with Michael and me.

Afterward, there will be a book signing and reception. The special advance edition will be available through the ASU bookstore, and the full release comes next month.

Q: What’s next after this event?

A: Just that Michael and I are continuing to collaborate. We’re currently working on an adaptation of “Oroonoko” (a novel by Aphra Behn) in New York — a project I recently received a Guggenheim Award for. We’ll be developing it at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies this year, doing readings and workshops in Tempe. So, more to come!