Laramie’s Warning

‘The Laramie Project’ is a Play Worth Seeing

By Cathy Salustri

10 people.

That’s how many people attended opening night of The Laramie Project; of those 10, only two of us didn’t come to see friend of family. That’s a shame, because this is a show everyone should see before its all-tooshort run ends Sunday (Feb. 19).

Although opening night suffered technical hiccups, every actor on stage gave a standout performance. With 67 roles and 10 actors, each plays multiple characters, a challenge each more than meets. Curt Fennell and David Warner both deliver exceptional performances that haunt you long after the show ends. (Disclaimer: Warner often reviews theater for The Gabber; this does not factor into this review)

On Oct. 7, 1998, two young men in Laramie, Wyoming savagely beat another young man, Matthew Shepard, and tied him to a fence. Five days later, Shepard died. The murder made national news. The next month, NYC-based Tectonic Theater Project interviewed residents, which the company turned into The Laramie Project, a powerful tale that dovetails stories told by those close to both Shepard or his killers with other members of the Laramie community. The beautiful, ghastly result tells the story of a community of diverse beliefs and denial. And don’t worry: The way Tectonic wove together the play makes a tough topic easier to watch, as they interspersed lighter moments throughout.

Zackie Salmon, portrayed by Marilyn Haegele, describes a city eerily like Gulfport:

“If you don’t know a person, you will definitely know someone they know. So it can only be one degree removed at most ... And I don’t really mind people knowing my business –’cause what’s my business? I mean, my business is basically good.”

Jedadiah Schultz, played by Thea Fennell, echoes this sentiment, calling Laramie “a town with a strong sense of community – everyone knows everyone... a town with a personality that most larger cities are stripped of.”

Schultz caveats his glowing endorsement, though:

“Now, after Matthew, I would say that Laramie is a town defined by ... a crime. We’ve become Waco ... We’ve become a noun, a definition, a sign.”

As the show progresses, interviews peel at the veneer and show ugliness pulsing just beneath the surface. Certainly, not all Laramie residents hated gay men, but it becomes clear to the audience that the two men who killed Shepard weren’t the only two people who took issue with the LGBTQ+ people living in Laramie.

“I don’t give a damn one way or another as long as they don’t bother me,” Marge Murray (played by familiar face Eileen Navarro) says in a no-nonsense way.

On its surface, some would call that acceptance... but we learn the murderers killed Shepard because he came onto them. Whether or not that happened remains unclear; however, men make unwanted advances toward women every hour and precious few get killed, so the “as long as they don’t bother me” almost implies permission to kill a gay person if they show romantic interest in someone who doesn’t reciprocate.

One takeaway at the show’s end is not “this was a terrible tragedy in a town that didn’t welcome gay people” but “this was a terrible tragedy because the town was not honest enough about who they were.”

In light of contemporary Florida politics, perhaps that’s a lesson many communities should heed in advance of another tragedy.

The Laramie Project Ghostlight Young Company at Catherine Hickman Theater, 5501 27th Ave. S., Gulfport. Through Feb. 19: Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 2 p.m. $20; benefit for the LGBTQ Resource Center: Feb. 18, 7:30 p.m., $30-$50. Benefit includes post-show talkback; VIP tickets include priority seating and drink.

ReadOut continued from cover

On Sunday, events run from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.. At 1:30 p.m., this year’s keynote speaker Brian Broome talks about his book and signs copies after his talk. Broome won the Kirkus Prize for his memoir Punch Me Up to the Gods, which is about his experience growing up Black and queer in Ohio.

In 2020, ReadOut invited Tampa author Sheree Greer to be the festival’s keynote speaker. Now, she is a part of a poetry panel and leads a writer workshop called “Following Your Own Journey: The Hybrid Writer at Work” on Sunday. She explained how ReadOut lets her talk about representation and intersectionality within queer literature.

“It’s kind of challenging folks to say like ‘when’s the last time you read a book by someone who didn’t look like you or didn’t come from your background?’” Greer said. “So it was a chance to talk about the first time I read a book that had Black queer people in it, and how it felt to see myself on the page.”

Greer, Gore, and Muñoz all stressed to The Gabber the importance of ReadOut and LGBTQ-ori - ented literature, especially with the differing political stances in Florida.

“This is a tough time,” Gore said. “Libraries are being stripped of books. Kids are being blocked from studying things that some people think are inappropriate or make them uncomfortable or they just don’t want to acknowledge that LGBTQ people exist. And the [Gulfport] library and the [LGBTQ] Resource Center are determined to offer that information in those opportunities.”

Although this is a free event, organizers ask attendees to register their attendance online. Attendees can join ReadOut in person or via Zoom. Every registrant will get a Zoom link for each event.