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A FRESH LOOK
Look to FRESH PRODUCE for new works, new looks at old works, and, most importantly, an ever-widening range of voices that speak to the Midwestern experience. "Concert Reading?" What's That?
Using lecterns, a stage-directions narrator, and no technical elements, these readings focus entirely on the story and the actors--literally, the play's voices. |
ALWAYS FREE!
These concert readings, developed by artists from around the Midwest, are just as professional and compelling, but slightly more economical than our major productions. Therefore, in the interest of making live theatre more accessible, these concerts will have NO admission charges. DON'T MISS THESE! |
ONLINE
SAT. November 21 | 7:30pm* SAT. November 28 | 3:00pm *Talk back with cast & company to follow ALWAYS FREE! |
Synopsis
Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in Larissa FastHorse’s wickedly funny satire, The Thanksgiving Play. A troupe of terminally "woke" teaching artists scramble to create a Thanksgiving Day pageant that brings to light ways in which indigenous people and their history have been and continue to be inaccurately portrayed in American society, while making the same mistakes they set out to avoid. Can they somehow manage to create a pageant that celebrates both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month?
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The Company
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CAST
Logan --- Jennifer Allton Jaxton --- Jonathan Delima Caden --- Brandon Herring Alicia --- Michelle Vaudrin Narrator --- Ashley Schaeffer PRODUCTION CREW Director --- Tom Woldt Stage Manager --- Eliz Tomaras Music Director --- Anna Lackaff Dramaturg --- Jacklin Stonewall Interim TMW Production Manager --- Katie Buchholz Interim TMW Business Manager --- Eliz Tomaras |
DIRECTING TheatreMidwest: Brilliant Traces, The Friendly Hour; Repertory Theatre of Iowa: The Diary of Anne Frank, That Championship Season; Des Moines Playhouse: A Streetcar Named Desire; Duluth Playhouse: Singin' In the Rain; Yellow Tree (MN): Expecting Isabel; Williamston (MI): Five-Course Love; Guthrie Theatre (Studio): Hopscotch; Other Professional: Seven Year Itch, Jesus Christ Superstar, I Do! I Do!, Noises Off, Lysistrata the Bluegrass Musical!, Mother Courage, Night at the Carlton With Ray Charles; Guest Residencies; The 39 Steps, One Man-Two Guvnors, On The Razzle, As You Like It, Antigone; Simpson College: Peer Gynt, Learned Ladies, Henry 5, Into the Woods, Trojan Women, Godspell, Quilters, The Woman in Black, Twelfth Night; Other Academic: Machinal, The Winter's Tale, The Marriage of Figaro, The Bacchae; ACTING Goldfinch Theatre: Macbeth; Stagewest: Time Stands Still; Other: Taming of the Shrew, The Glass Menagerie, Brigadoon, Carousel, My Fair Lady, Equus, A Flea In Her Ear.
Homepage tomwoldt.com |
Jennifer Allton (Logan)
ACTING - The Phipps Center for the Arts: 84 Charing Cross Road, Population 485, Savannah Sipping Society. YellowTree Theater: Expecting Isabel, Steel Magnolias. THEATRE SERVICE - The Phipps Drama Council and Play Selection Committee. STAGE COMBAT CHOREOGRAPHY and TRAINING - St Catherine / St Thomas Universities: Richard III, Good Morning Juliet, Good Night Desdemona, Antigone. Sandbox Theatre: Zelda Wonderland. Red Performance Lab: Ravenous. Zanzibar Productions Full Frontal: Love and Lobotomies. Simpson College Theater: Henry 5, Noises Off, Kiss Me Kate, several workshops. EDUCATION - University of Missouri – Columbia: BA Theater Arts. University of Nebraska – Lincoln: MFA Theater Performance. Actors Center Chicago: 4 semesters Meisner Technique under Victor D’Altorio and Eileen Vorbach; Society of American Fight Directors: Actor Combatant, Proficiency in Hand to Hand, Rapier + Dagger, and Quarterstaff, ongoing training in Found Object, Knife, Short Sword, and Broadsword. 
Brandon Herring (Caden)
ACTING - Hampstead Stage Company: Alice in Wonderland, Hansel and Gretel. Okoboji Summer Theatre: Happily Ever After: A Wedding Comedy. North Dakota Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing, Unrehearsed Shakespeare: Macbeth. Prairie Repertory Theatre: The Little Mermaid, The Fox on the Fairway. Starry Night Repertory Theatre: All in the Timing. Western Illinois University: Richard II, Arcadia, Stupid F***ing Bird, Unreharsed Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing, Proof, The Drowsy Chaperone, One Man, Two Guvnors, Sense and Sensibility, November. BUSINESS: Assistant Drama Director - Hoover High School. EDUCATION: MFA Acting - Western Illinois University. BA Theatre Arts - Simpson College. |
Jonathan Delima (Jaxton)
ACTING - Iowa Stage Theatre Company: Adore Us! Line, Disgraced, The Christians, Company. Repertory Theater of Iowa/Stagewest: August: Osage County. Stagewest: Hand to God, Outside Mullingar, Next to Normal, Good People. Repertory Theatre of Iowa: The Diary of Anne Frank, That Championship Season. Des Moines Playhouse: Into the Woods. Des Moines Young Artists’ Theatre: Little Women. Des Moines Social Club: Bash. Previously: Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, All in the Timing, among others. 
Ashley Schaeffer (Narrator)
DES MOINES THEATRE: Open Door Rep: The Manic Monologues. Iowa Stage: A Doll's House Part 2. Stage West: Carrie The Musical, Next to Normal. CHICAGO THEATRE: MadKap Productions: Rocket City Alabam'. Locked Door Productions: Abduction the Musical. IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY THEATRE: Into The Woods, Fiddler on the Roof, Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol BUSINESS: Talent Management Generalist at Bolton & Menk 
Jacklin Stonewall (Dramaturg)
THEATRE - STAGE MANAGEMENT: Theatre Midwest: Hitler's Tasters . -COSTUME DESIGN: East Marshall Performing Arts: Sister Act. - ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE: Martha Ellen Tye Theatre: Jesus Christ Superstar, Company, Nunsense. EDUCATION: Iowa State University Aerospace Engineering (BS), Industrial Engineering (MS) |
Michelle Vaudrin (Alicia)
THEATRE - Carousel Theatre Co., IA: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Eurydice. The Plaza Theatre Company, TX: West Side Story, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Theatre Arlington, TX: Legally Blonde: The Musical. OTHER: Heathers: The Musical, Smokey Joe's Cafe. EDUCATION - UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA: BFA Musical Theatre 
Anna Lackaff (Music Director)
*Tours nationally as keyboardist of MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER. MUSIC DIRECTOR/CONDUCTOR New Rep. Theatre, MA: San Jose Rep Theatre, CA. Encore Theatre, MI. Boston Center for the Arts, MA. Carousel Theatre, ME. Des Moines Young Artists. Des Moines Playhouse. Noce. COMPOSER - A Christmas Carol (nationwide, annually 2005-present), Thank You for Being a Friend (OFF-BROADWAY, others). EDUCATOR - MN State Univ. Mankato (voice faculty). Walnut Hill School for the Arts, MA (voice instructor/music dir.). Drake Univ. (adjunct). Simpson College (guest artist). VISUAL ARTIST - Pieces by Virginia Tufte (illustrator). Journal of the Amer. Veterinary Medical Assoc. (cover artist). EDUCATION - NE Wesleyan Univ. / Vocal Performance major, 2003 
Eliz Tomaras (Stage Manager)
STAGE MANAGEMENT - Theatre Simpson: A Year With Frog and Toad, The Servant of Two Masters, Fall From Grace (Festival of Short Plays 2011) DESIGN - - Theatre Simpson: Back Story, Betrayal, Women Beware Women, Festival of Short Plays 2012. ACTING - - Theatre Simpson: Henry 5, Peer Gynt |
The Playwright
Larissa FastHorse received the MacArthur (Genius) Grant in 2020 for “creating space for Indigenous artists, stories and experiences in mainstream theater and countering misrepresentation of Native American perspectives in broader society.”.
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Larissa FastHorse is an award winning playwright, director, and choreographer of Native American heritage. She grew up in South Dakota and is now based in San Francisco. She was awarded the NEA Distinguished New Play Development Grant, Joe Dowling Annamaghkerrig Fellowship, AATE Distinguished Play Award, Inge Residency, Sundance/Ford Foundation Fellowship, Aurand Harris Fellowship, and numerous Ford and NEA Grants.
Larissa's produced plays include Urban Rez, Landless, Average Family, Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: a Class Presentation, and Cherokee Family Reunion. She has written commissions for Cornerstone Theatre Company, Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, AlterTheater, Kennedy Center TYA, Native Voices at the Autry, Artist’s Rep and Mountainside Theatre. She developed plays with Kansas City Rep, Artist’s Rep in Portland, Arizona Theater Company, the Center Theatre Group Writer’s Workshop and Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor. She is is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Sicangu Lakota Nation. |