IN TRANSLATION: THEATER AS MIRROR? A DISCUSSION

In his 2000 play The Laramie Project, playwright Moises Kauffman asked: How can theater reconstruct history? Also: How does it translate current events? Social issues? Is the theater a place of refuge from the world? Or, a giant mirror reflecting it back? Those questions will be considered during a discussion with a Northern Michigan director, and the artistic director of a small, nonprofit theater company September 24, 1 pm at the Glen Arbor Arts Center. The panel discussion is part of In Translation, the GAAC’s multi-pronged project exploring how the arts – visual, performing, musical and literary – translate the contemporary world.

Terri Heffron and Lesley Tye, both Northern Michigan residents, will be in conversation with GAAC Gallery Manager Sarah Bearup-Neal about their experience translating the contemporary world through theater. Heffron directed the Old Town Playhouse 2023 production of The Laramie Project, about the reaction to the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. Tye is the artistic director of Mashup Rock & Roll Musical. Mashup productions “remix popular culture not just to entertain, but to celebrate and question the society we live in, with stories that promote inclusion and tolerance.”

A grant from the Michigan Humanities Council provides support for the In Translation project. It continues through October 26. For more information go to GlenArborArt.org / EXHIBITS. The program is free. No reservations are required. The GAAC is located at 6031 S. Lake St.