Mark an important anniversary with 'The Laramie Project' at Theatre Horizon

Lifelong friends Erin Reilly and Matthew Decker founded Theatre Horizon in 2005. For their first offering, the pair selected The Laramie Project, Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project’s documentary-style dramatization of the murder of Matthew Shepard. Without a permanent home of their own, they staged the piece in the auditorium at Upper Merion High School, with the audience seated onstage alongside the actors.

Progress, not backtracking

Thirteen years later, Theatre Horizon has established itself as a force in the greater Philadelphia theater community. The company put down roots in Norristown in 2009 and has mounted more than 50 productions to date, picking up a slew of Barrymore Awards along the way. To kick off their 13th season, Reilly and Decker decided to mount a staged reading of the play that started it all. The Laramie Project will be performed at their DeKalb Street space September 28 through 30, just two weeks before the 20th anniversary of the tragic events that inspired the play.

“We wanted to revisit it because the world has changed in surprising ways since the play premiered, and since we first staged it,” said Reilly. “It can be easy to backtrack and lose sight of what the activist community has achieved.”

Artists reunite

Theatre Horizon’s reading will reunite original director Kathryn Nocero MacMillan and cast members Amanda Schoonover and Mike Dees. Performers joining the company include David Bardeen, Jessica Bedford, Taysha Canales, Stephen Novelli, Jack M. Henry, Brandon J. Pierce, and Cathy Simpson.

The company, ranging in age from early twenties to seventies, have different connections to the Matthew Shepard story. Henry was six years old when Shepard was killed and had little awareness of the history until they began working on the piece.

“It just didn’t reach me,” Henry said. “But having read the play now, my relationship [to the story] is one of knowing. I was raised in the Midwest, and the way they talk in Laramie is not dissimilar and also not gone. Even the people who aren’t blatantly homophobic can still put out this energy of nonacceptance.”

Schoonover takes on the role of Romaine Patterson, a friend of Shepard’s spurred to activism by his death. In preparing to return to the piece, she reflected on how the world has and hasn’t changed with regard to LGBTQ acceptance, highlighting the recent protests of Shakespeare in Clark Park’s queer- and trans-centered production of Twelfth Night.

A spectrum of voices

“What I’m really interested to see is how far we’ve come as a society, but also how far we still need to go as a society,” Schoonover said. “I want to look at what’s changed and what hasn’t. Some of the issues addressed in the play are things that are still actually happening.”

Several community engagement activities will accompany the performances, including a postshow discussion of students following the September 30 matinee performance and a community art exhibit that asks the question, “What does progress look like to you?” Reilly has reached out to gay-straight alliances (GSAs) at area high schools to create and curate art work for display in Theatre Horizon’s lobby.

“Partnering with local GSAs would have been unthinkable back in 1998,” said Reilly. “We are bringing a spectrum of different voices together around one topic. I think that resonates with America today.”

Theatre Horizon presents its anniversary reading of The Laramie Project at 401 DeKalb Street in Norristown, Pennsylvania, from September 28 through 30. Tickets ($20-27) are available online.