Blue Hill, Nebraska is a small town by most people’s standards, with a population under 1,000. But that doesn’t stop the local high school from having a vibrant theater program. Over the last few years, students there staged Shakespeare’s Macbeth, presented a drama about the Chernobyl disaster, and gave the U.S. premiere of Elizabeth Inchbald’s The Massacre.
Under the direction of of Blue Hill language arts teacher Summer Lukasiwicz, this year’s one-act play was The Laramie Project. The play tells the story of the kidnapping, beating and murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard back in 1998. Following his murder outside of the town of Laramie, Wyoming, members of the Tectonic Theater Project from New York City came out to Laramie and talked with the locals about how Matthew’s murder affected the town.
The play is a challenging one, presenting everyone’s story in an even-handed manner. But at it’s core, it’s a story about a young man who was killed because he was gay.
Not surprisingly, the play faced some resistance in small-town Nebraska. While the students and their director received nothing but support from their school and school administration, there were reportedly objections to it by both local clergy and some parents.
By the Thursday before the play’s Sunday performance, they had only sold 50 tickets for the show. The previous year’s play had sold 200 tickets.
So the word went out on social media that these kids needed support. My wife first read about it when she found a link on UNK theater senior Jacey Anderson’s Facebook page to a local blog, Her View From Home, written by Leslie Means, who is from Blue Hill. Means asked for people to either go to the play or help share the students’ story. I then saw a post on the blog Fairy Princess Diaries, which in between very bright animated GIFs told the students’ story. (The blogger is a singer/actress/writer who has performed on Broadway.) Finally, I saw a number of posts on Facebook ranging from local Nebraska theater people to folks from New York City.
My wife and I attended the show Sunday night, along with a group of UNK theater students, and there was a crowd of more than 300 paying customers there for the play (and for the tables of fabulous desserts baked by home ec teacher Christine Brown and her assistants). I was told by people we were sitting with that this was the first time they could remember that all the tables on the gym floor were filled, forcing many people to sit up in the bleachers.
Among those in the audience were three members of the Tectonic Theater Project who wrote and produced the original staging of the play.
The students presented a 30-minute one-act version of the play that fits the needs of student play competition rules, but even in its abbreviated form the play is moving. And these young people from Blue Hill did a great job with it. Keep in mind, these same kids were playing football, cheerleading, and doing every other imaginable high school activity. When you attend a small high school, you don’t specialize.
So let me congratulate director Summer Lukasiwicz along with her cast and crew:
- Cast: Lindsey Hafer, Collin Brown, Becky Cox, Britney Toepfer, John Rouse, Bradley Morse, Jami Kirchner, Brendan Hafer, Trinity Cox, and Sadie Looters
- Stage Crew: Yuriko Hernandez-Piel, Brock Iliff, Olivia Buschow, and Dakota Busboom
Thanks for a great evening of theater. (And for the cake and pie…)