After one of the nation’s most heinous anti-gay hate crimes occurred in 1998, residents were interviewed extensively about how the attack affected the town. The Albright Theatre Company presents “The Laramie Project” at 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 16-17, 24, 30-31 and 2:30 p.m.
Aug. 25 at the Albright Theatre in Batavia. It is directed by J.
P. Quirk of South Elgin and stars a cast of 11 that play 60 different parts. He was in the show the first time the Albright did “The Laramie Project” 15 years ago and directed it at the Elgin Art Showcase eight years ago, he said.
Each time he approaches it with a fresh perspective. “The excitement is with allowing the new cast to put their spin on the show,” he said. “Because nothing in the show is fictional .
.. all of the text, all of the dialogue, everything that you hear has been spoke or shared by an actual human being at one point.
This isn’t a character show. You want to be as authentic as possible without turning these people into caricatures.” Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old gay University of Wyoming student who was lured from a bar by two men and then beaten, tortured and tied to a fence near Laramie.
He was discovered 18 hours later and succumbed to his extensive injuries five days later. “It made worldwide news because it was such an extreme hate crime,” Quirk said. After the murder, Venezuelan American theater director Moisés Kaufman and other members of his Tectonic Theater Project in New York City traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, to interview residents.
“Over the next year, they conducted over 200 interviews,” Quirk said. The play consists of short scenes based on those interviews, news reports and the company members’ own experiences of how the events of that night affected not only the world but the small town. “One of the people portrayed is Father Roger Schmit, who they interviewed multiple times.
Father Roger has a line he uses in the show where he says, ‘I think what you’re doing is good. Good will come of this, but you must do your best to say it correct,’” Quirk said. “When we really analyze that, I think one of the things that makes ‘The Laramie Project’ authentic is that we don’t see just the people that are like, ‘This is terrible, shame on these kids, they should get the death penalty.
’ We see people who have terrible things to say about Matthew Shepard and have terrible things to say about the queer community. We see people talking about how their businesses went under because the town got so much bad publicity. “Though it is biased, and the show is about love and acceptance and about how horrible this was, one of the things that makes this narrative so real is that we get to see all sides of the people from this town,” he said.
“The Tectonic Theater Project didn’t just go to Laramie and interview all the good people.” The play was made into a film for HBO in 2002 starring Nestor Carbonnell, Christina Ricci, Camryn Manheim, Peter Fonda, and Steve Buscemi. Most of his actors were already familiar with the play, he said.
He even has two people who were in the productions he was previously involved in. “This is one of those shows that people tend to not audition for if they don’t know about it,” he said. “You tend to get actors that are very familiar with what this is about.
They do the research.” The play is still relevant today and probably will be for years to come, Quirk said. “I think it’s very topical right now with everything that’s going on with politics, with women’s rights and rights for the queer community and all this talk about Project 2025 and people so desperately fearing that they are going to lose their rights,” he said.
“It is a tough show. It is a heavy show. This isn’t a farce or a murder mystery.
Which, those are great — I love doing those. I don’t want to do an entire season of somber, heavy shows. The first night of auditions, we had 24 people show up.
It became very clear how important this show was.” The play is a black box set with eight black chairs and three black tables. All the costume pieces are hanging on hooks on the stage with the actors donning and discarding them as needed, he said.
“There isn’t a whole lot of quote-unquote direction that needs to happen from me because it’s just actors up there doing their best to try and tell this story the best they can,” he said. “They’re all doing amazing. I am very, very fortunate.
” He thinks audiences will appreciate the show and the awareness it brings. “I think the audience will really love the show because it’s very moving,” he said. “It’s sad.
There are going to be audience members that will feel like they just got punched in the gut. But it’s not our job to water it down or sugar coat it. It happened.
And it’s told in a beautiful way.” Annie Alleman is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News. ‘The Laramie Project’ When: 7:30 p.
m. Aug. 16-17, 24, 30-31 and 2:30 p.
m. Aug. 25 Where: Albright Theatre, 100 N.
Island Ave., 3rd floor, Batavia Tickets: $18-$23 Information: 630-406-8838; albrighttheatre.com.
