UU Players Present “The Laramie Project” to Benefit LGBTQ Community Center

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After three riveting performances in November, UU Players will present an encore performance of The Laramie Project on Saturday, December 10, to benefit Triangle Community Center, which serves Fairfield County’s LGBTQ community. For the company’s previous closing performance of Moises Kaufman’s play exploring the reaction to the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, the actors took the stage just hours after news broke of the shooting at a gay bar in Colorado Springs. The painful reminder of just how timely this play still is combined with the powerful performances that day on The Unitarian Church stage spurred on audience members to encourage the cast to consider reprising their roles in a benefit performance.

Now community members have another opportunity to see this important play, while supporting an organization that does vital work for our LGBTQ neighbors. Triangle Community Center is Fairfield County’s leading provider of programming and resources to nurture growth and connection within the LGBTQ community. TCC is home to more than two dozen free groups that meet weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly at the center. Groups include peer support, recovery, older adult daytime programming, crafts, sober social events, and youth groups. 

The Laramie Project, Saturday, December 10, at 7pm, at The Unitarian Church, 10 Lyons Plain Road, Westport, and via Livestream. $20 suggested donation or pay what you can. All proceeds will go to Triangle Community Center. Talkback with the director and cast immediately following the show. For tickets/info, visit: www.uuwestport.org/uuplayers

More about the show: Part of the power of this production is its simplicity. It involves no set, just ten actors in chairs on stage, with their costumes/props near them to aid in bringing to life the 60+ characters in the play—all of whom were real people in Laramie. Without the distraction of a complex set, attention is focused on the words—all of which were actually spoken by the townspeople of Laramie; the script is made up of direct quotes from interviews conducted by the Tectonic Theatre Project with residents of the area in the year after the crime occurred.

While a play about a brutal hate crime may seem too sad to endure, the story is also about Laramie, Wyoming. It would be easy to dismiss this Western town as one populated by redneck, Trump-y red-staters with whom we enlightened Eastern elites have nothing in common. But you will be surprised by the folks you meet there. The Laramie Project offers a glimpse into a community that was rocked by events both within and out of their own control. And, this story is not just Laramie’s story. Our nation is one which struggles to embrace compassion and tolerance, and so, in a very real way, Laramie is every town.