One Year Later

It's been a year since our production of The Laramie Project went onstage at The Agassiz. I was going over my notes and our DVD, and I have to admit that I became very nostalgic over the memories that overcame me. One year later, those of us involved with the production have moved on in our own separate ways: either getting into the meat of our college careers, applying for jobs, writing theses, continuing our involvement in theater, or what have you. Most of us don't even talk with each other anymore.

But, I know that personally, the people that I worked with almost full-time for an entire semester I will never forget. We poured our hearts and souls into this beautiful play, and came out with a wonderful project. I'll fondly remember our last minute haste to pull things together, painting the backdrop and building the set, just as much as I'll treasure singing "Piano Man" before our first live production as a team. Thank you also to everyone who don't even know how much they contributed to our show, from friends to strangers.

I don't know if I blogged that day, but about a month after our production, Rulon Stacey visited Harvard to see some of us and speak with us about his experiences and also hear about ours. We had a 2 to 3 hour talk that night, and Dr. Stacey showed us some of the letters he received from all over the world. I'll never forget the hate letter he showed us. "Do you cry like a baby for all your patients or just the faggots?" Just having physically seen and touched that letter was a profound experience for me, since I had been seeing it in the script for so long.

In any case, this just got me in a reflecting mood. Thank you Matthew, for giving me such a life-shaping experience as one I'll never forget.

Ready for a new op-ed :-)

Thoughts?  

We can make theater more imaginative, more compelling and more sympathetic to a larger group of people by making it more diverse and multicultural.

                Theater isn’t created in a vacuum.  Theater speaks to both our individual and social conditions.  Kenneth Tynan, an influential English theater critic, wrote “No theater could sanely flourish until there was an umbilical connection between what was happening on the stage and what was happening in the world.”  For that reason, the goals of producing a show should be much larger than to just shape what happens onstage.  When we produce a show, we should also communicate social messages, as well as provide an educational experience not only for the cast and crew of that particular production, but also for the audience and community that the production is a part of. 

                Sam Linden ’10, during a question and answer session for The Laramie Project, quoted a friend who stated that “theater is education disguised as entertainment.”  I wholeheartedly agree.

                Sometimes, however, we can get so caught up in details that we forget what the essence of theater is.  In order to stage a show that “looks good,” and “looks right” we may confine ourselves to precedent rather than liberate our ability to make change.  We get so caught up on emulating the shows that we’ve seen in the past that we pass up opportunities to create something entirely different and unique.

                The quality of theater at Harvard is superb, but still has room for improvement and can better reflect the community that it serves.  The philosophy behind common casting, that anyone should have an equal opportunity for a role, is almost perfect in theory but relatively unsubstantiated in practice.  How many lead roles are continually played by actors of the same stripe that have always played those roles?

                There has already been much work to make theater here more diverse and more inclusive.  BlackCAST, for instance, made a point of staging a gender-neutral and color-blind production this past fall.  Hopefully, with the arrival of a new Dramatic Arts concentration and graduate school, and with more theater courses offered, formal training for more people will be more available and accessible. 

                However, this alone will not be able to resolve our problem of under-representation.  What is needed is more calculated risk-taking, and better support in place to maximize the chance that cutting-edge decisions will succeed.  Quite simply, we should try to cast some actors who don’t typically populate our major shows.  For many outsiders, the world of Harvard theater is exclusive and relatively confined.  It’s time to shake things up.

                I do not wish for affirmative action of the theatrical bent.  Rather, I am asking that directors and producers to re-evaluate what qualities they look for when they cast their shows and take a chance on recruiting fresh new faces.  Students of multicultural backgrounds traditionally under-represented in theater should not be discouraged by prior experiences and keep training and trying out for theater shows if theater is truly something that they love. 

                Cultural groups, if there is an interest, should host their own theatrical productions as a way to train talent and provide more theatrical experience for more actors.  In staging their own shows, cultural groups may find that theater is a meaningful way to explore cultural identity as well as expose others to their cultural art and artists. Cultural groups can provide support, as well as provide consistency, for diverse Harvard theatrical productions.

                During The Laramie Project pre-show panel, Rev. Stephen Johnson noted that The Laramie Project is a play performed around the world in Africa, India, and a multitude of other countries.  The reason why The Laramie Project is so popularly produced, he stated, was because people have found that the powerful message behind this one show is not just confined to one group of people in particular, but to all who face stereotypes and prejudice.  The show is more popular, and meaningful, because of the diverse groups that perform it.   

                You can find similar universality in almost any theatrical production.  When you choose to make theater a more inclusive place, then you add another dimension to the message behind the play and the production.  You can connect with a greater number of the audience and make the theatrical experience more meaningful. And in the process, you can invigorate old themes with new significance.  

Post Found, Finally.

Finally found a copy of  The Crimson's review online.  I've been looking for this forever.  Thanks Matt for emailing me the link.

I'm appreciative of their positive response.  Nothing bad was said about the production!  And it seems that all our important messages were received.  :-)  My only complaint is that I wish it were longer :-P.  

So Happy

I have not been so happy in so long.  During tonight's performance of The Laramie Project, I laughed and cried, and being with the audience and soaking in the audience's reaction just made my emotional reactions just that much more pronounced.  It really means a lot to me that we could move people to tears and laughter and inspiration with just one play.  It means so much to me that our cast and crew would put so much effort in order to perform a play that is both powerful in meaning and emotion.  It means so much to me that tonight's performance would be utterly perfect, and I appreciate my cast raising me on their shoulders.  I really appreciate my friends, and blockmates and family for coming to see this show and share this experience with me.  It fills me with emotion, that beautiful light snowflakes would be falling to the ground on this wonderful, perfect evening.

Early Reviews

Stephen Johnson, who is featured in the play:

Congratulations on an outstanding opening night performace!  The afternoon panel was a great success, too.  We are grateful for the opportunity to come up and be a part of this project.  Kudos to you, your cast, crew and sponsors.  

From the director of the Harvard College Women's Center:

Huge congrats! the panel discussion and play were both so wonderful last night. I wanted to congratulate you for all of your hard work and for the amazing experience both were for me.

Congrats again and best to you and the cast for a great run this week! You should be VERY proud of what you've made possible here at Harvard.

From an Assistant Dean at Harvard College:

Allow me to add my congratulations as well.  The panel and production were very good and I was very impressed by the cast. 

Tim McCarthy, Lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Adjunct Lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government:

Absolutely fabulous!  Bravo.

The Laramie Project

Don't miss it! 

The Office for the Arts at Harvard presents the Harvard premiere of:

The Laramie Project

by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project

A student independent production 
Directed by Jason Wong

Assistant Direction by Jacqueline Palumbo

Produced by Truc Doan and Karla Reyes

www.harvardlaramieproject.com

January 8 to 10, 2009 7:30 p.m.

January 10 and 11, 2009 2 p.m.

at The Agassiz Theater

$10 General Admission | $7 Students

Tickets available at The Harvard Box Office

The Laramie Project is a powerful docudrama derived from a compilation of interviews conducted by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project. The story centers on the entire community of Laramie, Wyoming and their reaction to the murder of Matthew Shepard, the victim of a gay hate crime. Both retrospective and dynamic, heartbreaking and inspiring, The Laramie Project is an experience that you won't want to miss, and one that you won't forget! For more information on our production, including news and special events, please visit our website at www.harvardlaramieproject.com  

With a Special Harvard Laramie Project Panel Presentation

January 8, 2009 4:30 p.m.

at The Agassiz Theater

Free Admission!  RSVP at http://harvardlaramieproject.com/panel.html

We are very excited to announce that, in conjunction with the Nicholas Papadopoulos Fund, we will be hosting a special presentation with Romaine Patterson, Rev. Stephen Johnson and his wife, Rev. Penelope Toms.  All three lived in Laramie when the event occurred ten years ago, and are thrilled to be able to offer their perspective on what happened and be available to answer questions from the audience.  Romaine Patterson and Rev. Johnson are featured prominently in the play.  The panel will be moderated by Dr. Timothy McCarthy, and will be held prior to the opening night performance.  Please visit our website for more details!  http://harvardlaramieproject.com/panelists.html

Traders@MIT

Oh my gosh!  I have some exciting bit of news that will bore everyone else but me.  But it's exciting!

First and foremost, let me introduce the preliminary website for The Laramie Project, still under construction, to you, my best friends.  The website is more than halfway done, with features such as forums, blogs, an insider's look at the production, etc.  It's going to be really amazing!  Please check it out and tell me what you think.  Be critical.  What is uninteresting?  What is unclear?  Do the colors work?  Are there any questions left unanswered?  Is it easy to navigate?  Are you eager for updates at all?  Or is everything just a waste of time?

Secondly, a friend and I entered a trading competition on a whim this past Saturday at MIT, hosted by Traders@MIT and co-sponsored by J.P. Morgan and D.E. Shaw.  We got second place!!  There were over forty teams from Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Wellesley, Columbia, Dartmouth etc. etc., and we got second place!!  I still can't believe it, because I feel like I was the only humanities concentrator there and I was so sure we wouldn't place top five.  The worst part of the competition is the fact that my teammate and I could've placed first, if it weren't for a really big bone-headed move during one of the sections... to the team that won first place!  We lost hella points, and they gained hella that round.  Oh well, it means so much to me though that even though we made the biggest mistake of the competition we could still take second place.  It was sooooo amazing!!!!!!

Common Casting

Oops!  I still have two more posts on China to go.  But in the meantime, I can't say how awed and happy I am at how this week is going.  First of all, classes are great.  I got into the Social Studies tutorial I wanted ("Citizenship Rights"), and it only has six students!   I'm also getting rid of three Core requirements (Science A: Nanotechnology, Science B: Origins of Knowledge, Lit A: Lives Ruined by Literature), and fourth year Chinese!  Yikes.

But the most amazing thing this week by far has been Common Casting.  This is the week that pretty much all of the Harvard theatrical productions hold auditions for actors.  Ours has been scheduled starting this past Monday to Thursday 9 p.m. to Midnight, and we're on our last night tonight!  We've had amazing turnout, and nothing makes my day better than when an actor shows up and loves the audition, and the play, and is really excited for the production.  Because of the roundabout way that I came to Harvard theater (thank you for your understanding, team!), our team has been flooding the open, house, ethnic, and other email lists encouraging everyone to audition.  We're trying to be as friendly, welcoming and helpful as possible, because sometimes it can be very intimidating to audition in front of three to four strangers, and be judged, you know?

The monologues that we're having people read are Sherry Johnson and her discussion of a separate police officer's death, Romaine Patterson and standing up to Fred Phelps, Aaron Kriefels on discovering the body, and Jedidiah Schultz on how close to home prejudice can be.  All are very moving and heartrending monologues.  The dialogue scenes are the confession of Aaron McKinney with Rob Debree (Male), and the nearly fatal and life-altering event of Reggie Fluty and Marge Murray (Female).  Oh man!!

The Harvard Laramie Project

We did it!! WE did IT! I just learned of this not even three days ago, and I'm still bouncing off the walls and flying high above the clouds.

We are producing the Harvard premier of The Laramie Project! The number of performances, and performance times will be announced at a later date, but we will be putting this production on at the Agassiz Theater here at Harvard on the weekend of January 8 to 11, 2009! Everyone's invited! Please come! It's going to be awesome!

In any case, we have big plans for this production, including possibly the use of cinematography and photographs in order to create an ultra-modern artistic feel. For our publicity campaign, we are hoping to utilize all the means available to us, including print ads, posters/flyers, making use of the internet, and especially utilizing a social network as a way to connect the cast, crew, and fans of the Harvard Laramie Project! I think what's going to be new about this particular web campaign is that I'm going to encourage all of the staff, cast and crew to blog about their experiences when they can. I think it's going to be great! It's kind of like mimicking the diary moments inside the play itself (if you are familiar with this play, you'll know what I'm talking about, if not, don't worry about it!) In addition, you'll be able to ask us questions, and prod our artistic vision as we lead into opening night! Furthermore, you'll get an insider's view of what it's like to put on a theatrical production. We have much to offer! Visit theharvardlaramieproject.ning.com and check it out! You should register! And stay tuned!

For the past two weeks, our staff has poured their heart and soul into organizing a group and a proposal for our show. Our proposal for The Agassiz theater is eight pages long. Including our credentials section, our proposal's almost twenty pages! This is all for a production that wasn't even guaranteed a space or funding!

The night before I expected to hear about whether or not we got a space, I had nightmares where I begged and pleaded with everyone I knew to get this project off the ground even though we were rejected. I prepared myself not to show disappointment or cry if we were refused. I woke up the next morning, tired from an exhausting repose, and was glued to my email inbox. I received this email in the late afternoon, that read:

We were impressed by your commitment to bringing this show to the Harvard campus, and the team presentation during your interview.

The NCT/Agassiz Review Committee has decided to grant The Laramie Project a two week residency at the Agassiz Theatre for the weeks of Dec. 15 to Jan. 11 (taking into account winter recess) contingent on the following items:
- There will only be one weekend of performances, starting no earlier than Wednesday, 1/7, and going no later than a matinee on Sunday, 1/11, allowing for an evening strike.
- You agree to work with the Agassiz staff and other building users to ensure all support spaces (Horner Room, scene shop, lobbies, etc.) are shared fairly and always left clean and organized for the next group.
- You abide by the rules and policies of the Agassiz Operations Manual and Tech Safety Manual.

Honestly, I teared up. I'm so excited for this show! We have such a genuinely awesome group behind this production, I can't help but be more and more excited for this production as time passes!! We still have much work to do, such as apply for funding, and get our paperwork together and create our organization behind this production, but we're doing this! It's almost like living a dream. *pinches self* Stay with us and follow our trials and tribulations as we begin our journey to our big performance dates! Welcome, all, to The Harvard Laramie Project!