The UFV Theatre department and the Community Health and Social Innovation (CHASI) Hub are partnering to support the Winter 2023 production of Moisés Kaufman’s, The Laramie Project with a digital art contest. Professor Shelley Liebembuk is directing and producing the show, which will be performed at the Abbotsford campus. The digital art contest responds to the themes of The Laramie Project and what it means to be LGBTQ+ today.
The contest accepts digital art submissions accompanied by a brief artist’s statement of about 300 words. Any current UFV student is eligible to partake in the digital art contest and the first-place winner will be given $3,500 in prize money and an interview with The Cascade. All runner-up entries will be included in the art exhibit at the S’eliyemetaxwtexw Gallery in Building B starting on March 23. The digital art contest began on Jan. 13 and will end on Feb. 3, 2023.
Full contest details can be found at https://blogs.ufv.ca/chasi/2023/01/13/laramie-art/
The Laramie Project is a word-for-word play (also known as verbatim), which chronicles the aftermath of the brutal murder of a gay university student named Matthew Shepard in the small town of Laramie, Wyoming. To create the play, more than 200 interviews were conducted by Kaufman and members of his Tectonic Theatre Project company in Laramie. The dialogue in the script is the exact wording from the results of the 200+ interviews with the local residents.
“It showcases how theatre is a brave space for us to engage in difficult conversations together,” said Liebembuk. “My hope is that producing this show can generate a space to support the LGBTQIA2S+ community, call-in implicit and explicit homophobia, and engage in meaningful conversation together.”
“I spoke to Professor Martha Dow, who runs CHASI here at UFV, and she had a great idea with her students that we could have a digital art call that invites UFV students to respond to the Laramie project, but also broadly to the issues around being a member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community today.”
Liebembuk also explained that Professor Aimée Brown and her ARTS 380 class are helping to run the contest and curate the art pieces in the gallery.
“There isn’t a right way or a wrong way, and it doesn’t have to require reading and dissecting The Laramie Project play,” said Liebembuk concerning what the digital art submissions should look like.
Some of the students involved in the production also shared their thoughts and experiences in regard to The Laramie Project and how it has shaped and impacted them:
“It felt very important to be part of this impact of representation,” said Sterling Kai Pollock, the assistant director. “That’s an important project to bring to a community that isn’t very accepting, especially when you come from an even smaller community with the same kind of issues. It’s very nice to feel like you’re part of some positive change.”
Taya Viger, an actor in the ensemble told The Cascade, “as the interviews go on there are multiple times that the Tectonic Theatre Company goes to interview the town, and seeing how people change and grow over time through this tragedy happening… I think just that theme is really powerful to inspire other people.”
“There’s a lot of deep themes that I was unaware of when I first joined,” said Madalyn Clempson, an actor in The Laramie Project. “It’s something that I hadn’t thought about a lot before… this has been a huge eye opener [for] me.”
“I didn’t know much about the Laramie project before getting into it, besides the fact that it had to do with the murder of a young gay man,” said Raven Turchinetz, an actor in the play. “The more that I have come to know about it, it has motivated me to be really committed to the show because there is an important story that’s being told.”
Another cast member, Alia Von Riesen reflected that “we are being really intentional with talking about it as a group as well and really diving into… the significance of what we’re saying and how we are representing these different perspectives in a way that it’s true.”
Performances will run from March 24 to April 1, and tickets will be five dollars for students. Students who cannot afford the fee can email the box office at theatre@ufv.ca to receive complimentary tickets. The performances will take place during Thursday and Friday evenings as well as Saturday afternoon matinees.
Disclosure: The Cascade’s former Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Mijo-Burch is involved in the Laramie Project art contest as an employee of CHASI. To avoid any conflict of interest, he had no editorial input on this topic or the writing of this article.
Rachel is working towards a BA with a concentration in English and Theatre. She has been employed at The Cascade since Fall 2021 as a Staff Writer and a Jr. News Editor. Currently, she is the sectional News Editor and enjoys meeting and interviewing people as well as taking long walks in nature. Rachel also likes to stay up to date on the latest trends and informs students through her fashion column entitled Campus Fashion.
