Thursday, February 21, 2008

"The Laramie Project"

This writing ties into what I was writing about in my previous blog about the many talented people in Alabama. I wanted to write tonight about the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) Theatre's presentation of "The Laramie Project" written by Moises Kaufman , members of the Tectonic Theater Project, and directed by UAB student Luke Harlan. The show will run February 20-23 at 7:30pm and at 2pm on February 24, in the Alys Stephens Center's Sirote Theatre.

You can find all of the details here: http://main.uab.edu/show.asp?durki=116374 which is the site of the press release from the University. The Laramie Project was written in reaction to the 1998 murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. The play is based on hundreds of interviews with the town's citizens. Please use the link to read about the awards that this young director has won.

I had planned to go with my friend Julian, who paints these wonderful tiles, see the tiles at www.home.earthlink.net/~julianhazlett/maxie to see "The Laramie Project" tonight, but have taken a cold and sore throat. I'm very disappointed that I will not be able to go because after the play, the cast will hold a discussion about the making of the production. Cliff Simon, who is also a friend of mine, is the set designer and hopefully he will be a guest blogger one evening. It would be great to hear about his process of creating the set for this play, what he was thinking, and how he arrived at his designs. His site can be found here http://www.cliffcakes.com/sets/ Cliff is very talented guy and we are very fortunate to have him teaching at the University. Visit the Sets Website at:http://home.earthlink.net/~set-designer/sets/

Perhaps this blog will be a place where there can be a dialog about the issues explored by the play. If anyone sees the blog, please feel welcome to post a comment. I hope there will be a post by someone who attended the play and the discussion afterwards.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Donna,

FYI, last night, a lot of students were at a party in Southside. About 1 AM, a 1 story high back porch with 12 students congregated on it, collapsed and fell to the ground. None of the students had life threatening injuries.However, several of them broke their ankle. One of them, Benoit Johnson, is one of 8 actors in The Laramie Project. So tonight and tomorrow matinee, as Benoit is with his family in Hunstville, waiting an operation on Tuesday on his ankle, the director of Laramie, Luke Harlan, is going to take over his role.

This will be Luke's last acting job before he leaves to be the assistant director to Moises Kaufman (who wrote Laramie) on Moises' new show, 33 Variations, at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.

Laramie plays tonight at 7:30 and tomorrow afternoon at 2 PM. Tickets can be gotten at the Alys Stephens Center by calling 975-ARTS.

Cliff