This will be my last post of this production blog. It has been difficult to decide when or how to close the book on the production. I spent the past summer at conferences where we discussed how to sustain the “life” of theater productions, especially those related to ongoing social issues. I still haven’t stumbled […]
Life after Laramie
While the curtain came down on our production many months ago, and our cast members have moved on to new projects. Recent graduate Summer Puente (Romaine Patterson) has been capturing Occupy Durham events with her camera lens. Recent graduate Ben “Mr. Bergmann” Bergmann (Doc O’Connor) is chronicling the wisdom of school children in Houston, TX […]
We are theatre
Theatre Communication Group launched it’s “I am Theatre” video campaign and YouTube channel. They’re going to feature 50 videos over the next 50 weeks. So we’ve got some time, but I say we get something cooking right after the semester starts! Are you in? http://www.tcg.org/fifty/video_submit.cfm Enjoy video #1 from Rachel Grossman of the acclaimed Woolly […]
2010 Census data and LGBT North Carolinians
As promised, here are the compiled census numbers about the state of North Carolina’s LGBT communities, courtesy of Pam’s House Blend (bolded text are her emphasis): There are a lot of gay households in places other than the large metropolitan (read solid Blue) areas of the country, and the Williams Institute has sliced and diced […]
Read the Blog!
I had to share the news this week from USA Today (via BestCollegesOnline). Duke received a mention as 1 of 20 American colleges making “good use” of social media. It got me to thinking about all the fun ya’ll had aping Jeff’s cries to “Read the blog!” The article doesn’t reference our little piece of […]
Theater (as) History
Remember talking about how young (or not) we were when Matthew Shepard died? And Jeff’s telling us about watching the first performances of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart in the mid-1980s at the height of the AIDS crisis? I wish we could all jet up to New York City and catch the revival of Kramer’s […]
2010 Census data and LGBT Wyomingites
This news comes courtesy of friend-of-production, blogger Pam Spaulding, who will be shifting her blog over the next few weeks to a new home at Firedoglake. Today, the Williams Institute released new Census Snapshot: 2010 Reports: 125,516 same-sex couples were counted in California, 33,602 in Pennsylvania, 3,352 in Delaware, 6,176 in Kansas, and 1,147 in […]
Deadly dramaturgs
Hello all! I hope you are enjoying summertime in ways that are relaxing, intellectually stimulating, and cooooool! For those of you in or around NC, I’ll let you in on our weather so far. It’s been 90+ degrees for 12 days or more since May began. I’m beginning to think that all the recent budget […]
Taking action post-Laramie
Folks — For those undergraduate students who might be interested in taking a more direct role in securing and supporting LGBTQ rights here in North Carolina, Equality NC is looking for Fall 2011 interns for a whole host of jobs. It’s an absolutely critical time for Equality NC due in no small part to the […]
Leaving Laramie
This is Don’s last post, uploaded by Jules. Some time has passed since we closed Laramie, but somehow I still don’t feel like I’ve let it go. I know all of my posts have been about how Laramie went completely against everything that I normally expect from a show, and I’m afraid that this post […]
Documentary opera
Most Laramie participants were in performance during this event, so I wanted to share a clip from George Lam‘s documentary opera, The Persistence of Smoke, which ran April 15-16 in Durham, directed by Theater Studies’ own Jay O’Berski. George conducted the interviews from which John Justice wrote the libretto for this piece. George also composed […]
All Together Now
Ah deadlines, deadlines, how many a fair evening hath fled before thee? But if variety is the spice of life, deadlines must be the cookfire, because they sure make everything burn just a little bit quicker. Not only must I share my reflections on an intensely personal and introspective theater experience, but I must do […]
Funneling System
Jenny After a long and VERY successful run of the show, I’ve had time to realize what I’ll miss most about running The Laramie Project. This experience for me has been unique. I’ve never had to sit through a full show in the dark, on a headset, listening to actors in one ear and to […]
One Last Look
I tried to starting gathering my thoughts about a week ago. Yet somehow I still find myself unable to verbalize everything I want to say about what these last few months have meant to me. For a while that bugged me and I kept putting it off in the hope that I would somehow discover […]
What’s more to say?
I’m honestly not sure what to say in this final post before I bid farewell to Laramie. In a practical sense, my part of Laramie was over and done a while ago, and became final once I had packed everything back into the prop cabinet. The curtain closed. The set was struck. The end. I […]
Thank You For Making Me A Better Me!
And it has finally come down to this. The shows are all over. The set was destroyed. We cried our last tears and laughed our final laughs. We have said our goodbyes. The Laramie Project Spring 2011 is over for all intents and purposes. But the moments and experiences I shared will all of you […]
I’m Not Saying Goodbye
Cameron McCallie As I was closing down Brody late Saturday night after the final reading of Dead White Men, Jacob’s words from the end of our final class happened to slip into my head: “There’s always a home in theater”. I looked around at the now bare stage and was inundated with memories from my […]
And I am eternally grateful…
Those last few runs of the show were completely surreal. Sitting there while watching a scene, my mind would often wonder back to the classroom where we first blocked that moment. A time when I couldn’t fathom what the space would look like or how it would all come together. Then, there I sat under […]
My Parents
So Jedadiah’s back. A couple weeks ago, Jeff approached me about doing a show at Manbites next fall. Last weekend, we had a read-through at Manbites so Jeff and Ed could hear it aloud and decide whether or not they wanted to include it in the upcoming season. And yesterday, Jeff offered me the role […]
Two posts in one OR A farewell
Kimi Laramie speaks, OR The conversation I wish we’d had I wish my roommate came to see Laramie. She’s a wonderful person, funny and sweet; we’ve been friends since freshman year. She’s also a Christian and I am not, which has led to many fascinating conversations this past year, usually with both of us on […]
A Poetic(?) Farewell
For my last blog post, I want to share three poems that I wrote during the dress rehearsals of the show—and I don’t mean, “during the general time period in which we had dress rehearsals,”—I mean DURING the dress rehearsals themselves. While many of you were busy going through scenes in act one, I was […]
Thanks. For filling me up.
I’ve been keeping myself from writing this blog entry because it’s my last Laramie assignment and it puts a level of finality that I’m only just letting myself feel. I cried every night of this show, and in most rehearsals. Instead of boring y’all with my emotions (they are many) about this show, I thought […]
“I looked in my rearview mirror to take one last look at the town”
When I signed up for Laramie, I had no idea just how much thought would be put into this play. I mean, I imagined there would be all of the usual things, but I was very overwhelmed by the amount of research that went into this. To me, Laramie was just a play. Yes, as […]
Now, you take care. I love you honey.
I am about to graduate. Wow. It’s been a little over a week since The Laramie Project closed. I had the staged reading of Dead White Men, my senior distinction project, the weekend after Laramie closed so now I am done with theater at Duke. It’s been a wonderful ride and now it’s over. It […]
Laramie Love
It’s now the aftermath of the show, and I don’t know where I stand. I got caught up in this huge whirlwind of a show that grew into more than myself or any of the actors. We carried the burden/honor of Matthew Shepard’s story, sharing it with around eighty people a night for two weeks. […]
