So tonight, I saw a production done by my high school's (that I graduated from last year, FYI) Harlequin Player acting class called The Laramie Project. Essentially this blog post is going to be a short review of the performance and the emotions and thoughts I had during and after the show.
So for those of you who do not know, The Laramie Project is a play that was written about Matthew Shepard, a student of the University of Wyoming who was tragically beaten and died, due to the plain and simple fact that he was gay. The play centers around the reactions of the people of Laramie, Wyoming and brought attention to the lacking laws centered around hate crime.
That being said, it is a very dark play. It does not involve anything light and humorous. While it did have a line here and there that brought out a few chuckles from the audience, it was not uplifting. It was downright depressing and brought even the toughest of people in the audience to tears. Eaglecrest's theatre teacher Neil Truglio decided to do this play after the horrible shooting at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater that left my hometown in a wake of violence. In all honesty, I couldn't think of a better set of young actors and actresses to portray the characters that they did and I couldn't think of a better person to lead them other than Neil. It was fascinating to me to watch the faces of the students that I had watched, and worked with my senior year of high school, go through this play. They played real people, multiple characters, and pulled it off amazingly. What got me the most was watching the faces of these incredibly talented people at the beginning of Act Two, seeing the tears streaming down their faces as they showed the audience what they were feeling when they visited the site where Matthew was bound and beaten. It was a fantastic show that was, understandably, difficult to pull off. The Harlequin Players of Eaglecrest High School pulled off such a gut wrenching, heart breaking, dark show with the grace and dignity that it deserved.
I'm an easy person to get to cry, most days. Emotionally speaking, I'm very in tune with them, Sometimes, too in tune with my emotions. As much as I went into the theater to see this performance, prepared for a few tears, I was not expecting what I felt. By the end of Act One, I was sobbing. Being a bisexual female in this day in age, the show made me realize how easy I've had it (in a way) concerning my sexuality. I've never been called a fag or a dyke. The most I've gotten was being told that I have to choose one or the other, I can't like both genders. But that's so not true. But the show wasn't just about hate crimes against the LBGT community. It was about hate crime in general, and bullying. It pulled my heart into my throat. My throat closed up from trying to keep the frustrated screams I wanted to let out, because of how affected I was by the show. I kept thinking to myself 'Wow. I've been lucky. I've been bullied about my weight and my personality before, but I've gotten off easy. I've never had anyone straight up call me something like that just because I like boys and girls. I've had it so easy. I hope I never ever have to go through something like that.'
I remember looking up at the ceiling during the performance, trying to hold back tears, praying to an entity I don't necessarily believe in, wondering why HE could have let something like that happend, why it happened. I remember praying to that entity that I never woke up to a phone call or woke up to see that someone I knew was on the news, dead, because he/she was gay. I prayed that I never experience that kind of hate directly and I prayed that no one I knew had to go through that. I know it'll take a long time for it to change, but I still prayed, for the first time in a very very long time to someone I didn't necessarily believe in nor did I know if I should or should not believe in.
That show earned the standing ovation it got tonight. It earned it. I am so very thrilled for the cast and crew members that I knew for a job very well done. I know I walked away from that theater a changed person, and I hope others were affected in a positive way too.
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