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 .