In Conversation: Larissa FastHorse (Sikangu Lakota), Playwright Jasmine Rochelle‐Goodspeed (Nipmuc), Artist Dr. Priscilla Page (Wiyot), Facilitator Tuesday November 10, 7 p.m. ET Live Virtual Conversation 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. Co‐Presented by UMass Amherst Theater Department and WAM Theatre Company UMass Amherst occupies the traditional land of the Nonotuck tribe. We would also like to acknowledge our neighboring Indigenous nations: the Nipmuc and the Wampanoag to the East, the Mohegan and Pequot to the South, the Mohican to the West, and the Abenaki to the North. BIOGRAPHIES LARISSA FASTHORSE Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation) is an award winning writer and co‐founder of Indigenous Direction. Her satirical comedy, The Thanksgiving Play (Playwrights Horizons/Geffen Playhouse), is one of the top ten most produced plays in America this season. She is the first Native American playwright in the history of American theater on that list. Additional produced plays include What Would Crazy Horse Do? (KCRep), Landless and Cow Pie Bingo (AlterTheater), Average Family (Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis), Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: a Class Presentation (Native Voices at the Autry), Vanishing Point (Eagle Project), and Cherokee Family Reunion (Mountainside Theater). In 2019 Larissa entered film and television with a series at Freeform co‐created with Courtney Hoffman. Since then she has set up a movie for Disney Channel and a special for NBC. She is currently in development as the creator for projects with Taylor Made Productions, Echo Lake, and another NBC project. Film and TV feel like coming home to Larissa who began her writer training as a Sundance Native Feature Fellow, Fox Diversity Fellow, ABC Native American Fellow, and an intern at Universal Pictures before she found her voice in theater. Over the past several years Larissa has created a nationally recognized trilogy of community engaged plays with Cornerstone Theater Company. The first was Urban Rez in Los Angeles. The second project, Native Nation, was the largest Indigenous theater production in the history of American theater with over 400 Native artists involved in the productions in association with ASU Gammage. Their current project, The L/D/Nakota Project is set in Larissa’s homelands of South Dakota. Her radical inclusion process with Indigenous tribes has been honored with the most prestigious national arts funding from Creative Capital, MAP Fund, NEFA, First People’s Fund, the NEA Our Town Grant, Mellon Foundation, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional theaters that have commissioned or developed plays with Larissa include Yale Rep, Guthrie, Geffen Playhouse, History Theater, Kennedy Center TYA, Baltimore’s Center Stage, Arizona Theater Company, Mixed Blood, Perseverance Theater Company, The Lark Playwrights Week, the Center Theatre Group Writer’s Workshop and Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor. Larissa’s awards include the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award for an American Playwright, NEA Distinguished New Play Development Grant, Joe Dowling Annamaghkerrig Fellowship, AATE Distinguished Play Award, Inge Residency, Sundance/Ford Foundation Fellowship, Aurand Harris Fellowship, and the UCLA Native American Program Woman of the Year. She is a 2020 MacArthur Genius Grant winner. Her company, Indigenous Direction, is currently consulting with Guthrie Theater, Roundabout Theater Company and Brown University. She is vice chair of the board of directors of Theater Communications group and represented by Jonathan Mills at Paradigm NY. She lives in Santa Monica with her husband, the sculptor Edd Hogan. JASMINE ROCHELLE GOODSPEED Jasmine Rochelle Goodspeed (Nipmuc) is a graduate of Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public Schools (PVPA), and has attended The American Musical and Dramatic Academy(AMDA) in NYC(2013‐2014), and Umass Amherst(2016‐2019) for acting and musical theater. She has performed in local shows, most recently starring as Belle in Beauty and the Beast(Saint Michaels Players), and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady(Valley Light Opera). As an indigenous performer, she has also written, produced, and directed a musical about King Philip's War and the tragedy of Deer Island titled "1675", earning her a title page at the Umass Amherst website(2018). Drawn to theater as a child, Jasmine Rochelle Goodspeed ’19, a theater and English major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, never misses an opportunity to perform. She sings at New Students Orientation events and in local opera productions and produces free Shakespeare performances every summer at the Pines Theater in Look Memorial Park, in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her most ambitious project yet is her Commonwealth Honors College thesis, 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. The play focuses on the separation of two members of the group and revolves around their stories in different places during the war. A member of the Nipmuc tribe and former president of the Native American Student Association, Goodspeed uses the musical to explore war, love, loss, and memory as indigenous families were interned on the uninhabitable Deer Island, now a waste treatment facility located within the Boston Harbor islands. PRISCILLA PAGE Dr. Priscilla Page (Wiyot) B.A. California State University East Bay, Advanced Certificate in Feminist Studies, University of Massachusetts, M.F.A. University of Massachusetts, Dramaturgy,PhD in American Studies, Department of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Priscilla María Page is a writer, performer, dramaturg, and faculty member in the Department of Theater at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she also directs the Multicultural Theater Certificate. Her research includes Latina/o/x Theater and Contemporary Native American Performance. She is currently writing about Latina/o/x theater history in Chicago. She is a member of the Latinx Theater Commons, the Network of Ensemble Theaters, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America, and the Association of Theater in Higher Education. Upcoming event: Sunday, November 15, 2020 3:00 p.m. ET The Sounds of Democracy: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet with Wynton Marsalis Online Concert followed by artist Q&A The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet's performance of "The Sounds of Democracy" aims to entertain, inspire, and uplift audiences with the full vigor, vision, and depth of America’s music. Led by trumpeter/composer Wynton Marsalis and featuring seven of jazz's finest soloists, the concert's unique repertoire celebrates jazz's embodiment of freedom and democracy. The Septet features Wynton Marsalis, trumpet/music director; Elliot Mason, trombone; Ted Nash, alto saxophone and flute; Walter Blanding, tenor and soprano saxophones; Dan Nimmer, piano; Carlos Henriquez, bass; and Obed Calvaire, drums. After the streaming of the concert, audience are encouraged to stick around for a live post‐show Q&A with Wynton Marsalis. This concert was filmed on September 27, 2020 at Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City in accordance with the New York State Department of Health Interim Guidance on Media Production. The Sounds of Democracy perfromance is sponsored by: Tickets for all Fine Arts Center events are free. For more information about these and all UMass Fine Arts Center Events and to get your ticketing link please visit: fineartscenter.com .