"The Laramie Project" - with our own Emma!

You can't tell it from the pictures (camera phone again, sorry), but one of those white blobs - usually one near the center of the picture - is last year's confirmand, Emma.

2008-05-30 Emma's Play

Jill and Mark went to an AMAZING performance of The Laramie Project at her school last night. It is "verbatim theater", all the words come from transcripts or interviews surrounding the violent death of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Each of the actors played a number of roles; Emma ranged from "the best bartender in town", to a loveable redneck, a Baptist Minister, a newsperson, and even the violence-speaking, anti-gay Fred Phelps (ask Jill about her run-in with Mr. Phelps' followers in Graduate School).

Matthew was a young, gay man who came to Laramie to go to college and was beaten to death when he was 21 years old. From the director's notes:

"The Laramie Project begs us to look at not only who we are and what we believe, but also at what we say and the words we use. This play asks us to think about the terms we throw around as a slur or a joke, and it pleads with us to reconsider how those terms are heard, how they are received, and what they truly mean to the people who hear them."

Powerful, moving stuff; extremely well performed for what turned out was only 5 weeks rehearsal!

There was a "talk-back" after the performance that added another level to the whole experience, and gave us a chance to hear some eloquent, thoughtful words from Emma.

If ANY of you are involved in plays, musicals, sports, concerts, graduations or anything else that the general public can attend, let Mark know and we'll do our best to have a contingent from First Church there to support you. Really. I mean it!