Tenafly High School's Award-Winning Performing Arts Department Presents
THE LARAMIE PROJECT
WHEN: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, November 21, 22 and 23, 7:30 PM
WHERE: Collins-Tall Auditorium, Tenafly High School, 19 Columbus Dr., Tenafly
TICKETS: $10 student/senior citizen and $15 adult.
To purchase tickets, visit www.tenaflytheatre.com
The Tenafly High School is proud to present The Laramie Project as its fall theater production. It has been cast and directed as a piece of serious contemporary drama, but more importantly, as a way to address important timely subjects that weigh heavily on all teens these days—including homosexuality, violence, bullying and what they teach us in terms of finding tolerance and acceptance in a difficult and often turbulent world.
The Laramie Project is based on a true life incident that occurred in October 1998, when Matthew Shepard, a 21 year old University of Wyoming student, was robbed, beaten and left to die tied to a fence on the outskirts of town because he was gay. After this devastating hate crime was committed, the Tectonic theater company made six trips to Laramie over the course of eighteen months to conduct more than 200 hundred interviews with people who lived in the town. The Laramie Project chronicles life in the town in the aftermath of Matthew Shepard's murder and remains a breathtaking collage that explores the depths to which humanity sinks as well as the compassion of which we are capable.
“To direct this show has been a long passion of mine,” says Tenafly High School Theater/Speech Director Samuel Ahn-Cooper. “All my life, I have been taught to be accepting, appreciative and tolerant of others regardless of their sexuality, religion or ethnicity, and knowing that theater can be a powerful voice and tool for educating others, I believe our production of The Laramie Project can open the door for important community and school discussions about the way we view homosexuality, sexual politics, education, class, violence and human rights. This story can teach us powerful lessons about the important difference between tolerance and acceptance, because as any caring parent will realize after seeing this play, Matthew Shepard represents all of our children and could literally be anyone's son. My hope is that it will make people confront their fears so they can think and act more kindly toward others.”
The show has been cast, directed and choreographed by the following Tenafly High School professional staff: Theater/Speech Director Samuel Ahn-Cooper, Technical Director Steve Moger and Production Coordinator Dr. Kim Burja.
The cast features Kevin Anbarserri, Hadar Baron, Camryn Bolkyn, Christina Choe, Abhishek Dasgupta, Hanna Ginzburg, Justin Gomez, Lulu Jin, Lielle Kaidar, Juliet Kim, Mikayla Kostyn, Ashley Kupferschmidt, Jenny Lu, Jesse Martinez, Ben Nissan, Gili Remen, Kiara Saxena, Rachel Silverman, Noah Stein, Jonathan Tamir and Jason Wu.
