Professor Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson, director, along with cast and stage crew join Craig McFarland to preview this theatre performance of the tragic Matthew Shepard incident at the University of Wyoming.
The Laramie Project
Nov. 6: Pay-what-you-can preview night.
Nov. 7-9, 13-15
All performances at 7:30 p.m., except for the Sunday, Nov. 9 Matinee at 2 p.m.
Tickets - Limited Seating Capacity
Performances will take place in the UIS Theatre Acting/Directing Studio, in the Visual & Performing Arts Building (VPA 170) on the UIS Campus.
Park in Lot B and walk to VPA 170.
Transcripted by AI with human review.
Craig McFarland:
Welcome to Community Voices on NPR, Illinois. I am Craig McFarland, and I get to talk to the director and some of the cast and stage crew from the upcoming UIS Theater production of The Laramie Project. For those of you that don't know about The Laramie Project, it's a play that came out in the year 2000 about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. I'll let the rest of them, take it from here — first up, Professor Missy Thibodeau-Thompson. You are the director for this production. Tell us a little bit about dates, tickets?
Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson:
We open Nov. 7. We run through Nov. 9, then Nov. 13-15, 7:30 p.m., the one Sunday matinee is Nov. 9, that's at 2 p.m. We also have on Thursday, Nov. 6, as a pay-what-you-can preview night, also at 7:30 p.m., that is cash only at the door. Tickets and our performance venue are slightly different this year because of maintenance work and construction happening in the PAC. So this year, our UIS Theater performances are being held in VPA-170, which is the Visual and Performing Arts Building, which is not the PAC. It is in what we refer to as the "Legacy campus." here at UIS. Parking for guests and visitors will be in Lot B West. You can get tickets online via our UIS Theater website, which is uis.edu/theater. It'll explain about parking and there's a link directly to get your tickets online with a credit card. That's the best way to get your tickets in advance. We have limited seating because this is basically our rehearsal and acting studio space that through the magic of our brilliant scenic designer and technical director, Associate Professor Dathan Powell, is turning into a performance space for us.
Craig McFarland:
That is fantastic. Being able to perform in the space that you're able to perform in. That's one of the benefits of theater, is to be able to have that adaptability. Someone that needs to be adaptable in your production is your stage manager. Chloe Pease, how did you come to be involved in this project.
Chloe Pease:
I became a part of this production. I went to the tech interview, then coming here, I already knew I wanted to go into stage management. Okay, here's a production. Let me get involved firsthand and get the college experience of what stage management is. I've been working closely with David, who is the main stage manager, and going through doing rehearsal reports, line notes, and helping as much as I can to keep the process going as smoothly as possible.
Craig McFarland:
It's really pretty impressive that this is your first semester on campus, is that right? And you decided to dive right into this UIS Theater experience as well.
Chloe Pease:
Yes, that's correct.
Craig McFarland:
Talk about how that process has already played out for you. What have you learned from this process, being able to take all of this in from lots of community members that are involved in UIS Theater, also your professors, and then of course your fellow castmates and crew members?
Chloe Pease:
The biggest thing I've been able to take away is different techniques to keep things organized. I'm a person that writes everything out, but I've been able to learn more shorthand. Shorthand ways to write things out to make it quicker. How to use more spreadsheets to help things stay organized. From my peers and community members, I feel like I've learned how to be more relaxed in the theater space instead of being so high-strung and like, 'No, it has to go this time, this way," and relax a little more to let it be more fun.
Craig McFarland:
Now, Sylus, I want to talk to you a bit about your role in the Laramie Project, because people may not know this about this particular play, but it's done from the perspective of a lot of different characters throughout Laramie, Wyoming. You're given a lot of different perspectives throughout this show on this tragedy that occurred in 1998. Talk a bit about the types of roles you're playing or some of the characters that you're going to be portraying in the Laramie Project.
Sylus Zawicki:
A lot of the characters I have, they have that feel of, this is how I've been living. This is how it is. This is for me. They want to tell their own story. Instead of going in and diving into what happened, first you start to know about them, and you start to get to know what they've gone through, and everything that they've done. Then you finally start to get to see that side of them they like to bring out. It is a little strange because usually when you're acting, you're playing a fictional character that it's easy to dive into that mindset of, I'm a tiger. But for this person or for this play it's, now I'm this person. You're a real person. Now, I feel like I have to do justice by you in order to say what you've said, and to do what you've done, and to think what you've thought. Diving out of my mindset and diving into theirs gets a little difficult, especially when you're doing many different people. It is all really fun because it's nice to take a moment to get out of my skin and see how it went down and react to in the moment of how they reacted to what happened, or what they want to say.
Craig McFarland:
Missy, that's an interesting point that Sylus brings up about this show. It was such a groundbreaking production when it debuted in the year 2000 and it really became centered around that human element. All of these different characters that make up this show are real life accounts trying to see the humanity through this tragedy as well. Talk about that humanity and what made you decide that this was the right time for this play?
Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson:
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. Ss Sylus was alluding to, and Craig has as well, this is a piece of verbatim theater. The Tectonic Theater Project and Moises Kaufman went to Laramie, Wyoming after this horrible tragedy occurred and began to interview the townspeople. These are transcripts, basically, from these interviews and these discussions. That verbatim aspect that Sylus was talking about, we learn about a wide variety of the townspeople. We learn about members of the police department, the sheriff's department. We hear transcript from an interrogation with one of the perpetrators. Some of these characters have viewpoints that are challenging to deal with. It's important that we listen to all of it, as uncomfortable and as difficult as it is. I've seen this production several times over the years. The first time I saw it was about six months to a year after it first premiered.
Last spring, I was teaching one of my classes, theater appreciation, and I was talking about verbatim theater and explaining to them what it is. I mentioned the Laramie Project to a room full of blank stares. Then I mentioned Matthew Shepard's name. Again, to a room full of blank stares. I had a light bulb that went off above my head when I realized none of these people were alive when this tragedy occurred. When I had that experience in class, I got back to my office. I dug the script out. I decided to look at it again. Not long after that, my colleagues and I were talking about what we wanted to do this season. I had another play in mind at the top of my list. I said, "Scratch that, this is the one."
Also, because of what I mentioned before about the change in venue, we're doing this in a smaller space. This is a very intimate space. Our seating capacity is 58. It's a very intimate space. The script itself calls for eight actors, we're using 10, and each of them play anywhere from 6 to 10 characters. They are pretty much on stage throughout the production. While it is focusing on this horrible tragedy that occurred, it's also a testament to the power of humanity and the power of listening and the power of hope that people can change.
Craig McFarland:
I was going to bring up the fact that neither of you were born when this play debuted. That's an interesting perspective on this as a historical piece. Much like Missy, I remember when this debuted. I remembered this tragedy. I remembered this being in the news. You don't have those first-hand experiences. What I do think you have, though, is that LBGTQ issues have become considerably more in the spotlight since the days of Matthew Shepard and since the days of the Laramie Project debuting, maybe partially because of projects like the Laramie Project that were put out there. I'm wondering what your experiences have been interacting with the story of this show.
Sylus Zawicki:
I've had a lot of reflections on it. I have lived with LGBTQ community members my whole life, and it's been where I'm so comfortable with it, I don't even notice what's happening, unless it's like a really big problem. Then it throws me for a loop. Hearing about this, something that I hadn't known about before, or maybe I'd heard about once or twice, but not really delved into it was a lot. It made me feel really bad. I finally realized how good a time this play is here for us. It's bad that it happened, and I feel bad that it did happen. But for this time, it is very important for this to happen and for this play to happen and for us to tell this story.
Craig McFarland:
Funny thing they say about history is that if you don't research it, it's bound to repeat itself, right? Chloe, what are your reflections on this story, more than the process of even being involved in UIS Theater, but how have you come to the Laramie Project and what have you taken from it?
Chloe Pease:
I feel like I've been able to realize more struggles that friends of mine who are LGBTQ go through and the fact that a lot of the time they've been shut down. This is eye-opening and when they hear you're doing the Laramie Project, oh my gosh, that's such a big deal to them. They're happy because although it's not their individual story, it's still a story that's raising awareness and letting people know more of what is happening, even though we can see it now, but we see it happen then. The fact that there's been almost no change or when there is change, it backsteps.
Craig McFarland:
Chloe, I find it interesting when you do theater at a college or university because it's a unique area of theater. You're getting teaching from professors. You're being involved in lots of different aspects of the show, asked to be all hands on deck nearly all of the time to make sure that you put a production together. It's that learning experience along with thecamaraderie that comes with the cast. Speak to how that process has been going with your other cast members and your other crew members.
Chloe Pease:
We all work well together. Throughout this process, we've realized like from day one, we knew pretty much nobody. Now we're joking in rehearsals. When we get off track, we can get back on track, and then we can get back off track. It makes it fun because we all get along. Yet we're all passionate about telling this story and delivering it to make sure the audience feels the impact that there should be.
Craig McFarland:
Missy, you have two passionate first-year students here with you. Talk about UIS Theater in general, because you also invite community members to be an active part of this program too.
Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson:
Both Chloe and Sylus are theater majors as well. UIS Theater has always opened our doors, when it comes to career interviews and auditions, to everybody — students, faculty, staff, and community members. We have a biology professor here on campus who's been in five of our productions. It's wonderful for our students to be able to work alongside folks from the community. We have staff member who is in this particular production. Carrie Levin is in this production, and Linda Schneider, who used to work on this campus, is retired ,and a community member. I'm going to miss all the cast members' names, so I won't say them all. We have other alums working on this production too, UIS Theater alums. Sarah Collins is our dramaturg. As Chloe mentioned, David Hecht is our stage manager. Having such a wide experience, a breadth of people involved, it's really great for our students. It's great for the community members, because they also provide mentorship. Unofficial, but they can lead by example for our students. Our students are learning from them, but our community members are learning from our students as well. I want to give a big, huge shout out to Sarah Collins, who is a UIS Theatre alum, and she is also our dramaturg for this production. She has served as dramaturg for another production that we did a couple of years ago. A dramaturg is someone who does research about the play, about the playwright, and about the world of the play. Given this is a history piece, I wish that I could share visually on the radio with the spreadsheets that this woman has come up with, the deep dive. We have a spreadsheet on a Google Docs for everybody in the company to reference with page numbers, references, dated things, historical references. She has a whole tab on there with every single company member of the Tectonic Theater Project. Who they are, what they're doing now, if she found a photo of them, and of every single character that is named in this production, of who they are, what they're doing now, if we have photos of them. It's fascinating and it's amazing. It builds on that learning experience, not just for our students, but for the entire company. Sarah is also working on some lobby display materials that we'll have out in the to help educate the audience as well.
Craig McFarland:
A remarkably wonderful theater community that we have here in Springfield. UIS Theater is an important part of that when it comes to these types of plays, being able to present this material that for colleges and universities. They tend to be more experimental, tend to be a little bit more avant-garde at times, but now you're truly presenting this type of history. So, break a leg to all of you with the Laramie Project,
Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson:
Yes, Nov. 7-9, and Nov. 13-15, Go to uis.edu/theater. and click on the tickets tab.
Craig McFarland:
Do that early because there's only 58 seats in this particular space. We want to make sure that you get your ticket for the show. Thank you all to Sylus, to Chloe, and to Missy for coming in. We appreciate all of you.
Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson:
Thank you. Thank you.
