The Laboratory Theater of Florida’s award-winning education department offers a variety of classes, workshops, seminars, and camps to allow local actors to optimize their talents with a solid base of skills. This is just one of the reasons The Laboratory Theater of Florida is known as Thinking Theater ®
The Laboratory Theater of Florida: Education is the proud home of The Louise Wigglesworth Excellence in Playwriting Award, an award created to honor one of the co-founders of the Lab – the award-winning playwright Louise Wigglesworth.
SUMMER CAMP!
April 28, at 6 pm, we will meet at The Laboratory Theater of Florida for a group read of The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman, followed by a discussion on the work, why it is important, and why many feel the need to remove it from the shelves in many places.
THE STORY:
The Laramie Project is the story of the community’s reaction to the 1998 murder of a gay University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shepard. The play is set in Laramie, Wyoming, and uses the actual words of the town’s residents, pulled from interview transcripts, to create a complex portrait of a community confrontation with itself.
“The Laramie Project is one of those shows where the script alone almost assures a strong production, but this is one of the finest you could see. Every element comes together in perfect harmony to make the horrifying and emotional tale stay with you long after the play ends. ” – Theatre in Chicago
In honor of Yom HaShoah, the Laboratory Theater of Florida is holding a community event called It’s About All of Us at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 30.
It’s About All of Us is a Holocaust remembrance program inspired and designed to help the community remember Yom HaShoah, or in English, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yom HaShoah commemorates the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust as well as the heroism of the survivors and rescuers.
Typically, the solemn day is observed with Jewish leaders, clergy, Holocaust survivors, and Jewish brethren. But for this year’s observance, Lab Theater is expanding this to honor the Holocaust victims. Diverse members of the Southwest Florida community will be coming together to pay respects to the Holocaust victims in a show of support and mutual understanding for the steep cost of hate, indifference, and fear.
Speakers and readers will include clergy, Rabbi Nicole Luna of Temple Beth El in Fort Myers, Dr. Robert Hilliard, a WWII liberator and rescuer, Holocaust survivor Peter Seminauer, Flo Giltman, a second-generation Holocaust survivor and member of Gen Shoah of SWFL, Shalom Life Center musicians Chuck and Diane Coffman and Bella Gutstein, Earl Sparrow, a Fort Myers music teacher and African American community activist, Cape Security owner and area resident Andre Blaine, LGBTQ community member Rachel Kaci Davis, Fort Myers resident Rosemary Allen, Canterbury School student Amelia Smith and other community members.
Sharing Yom HaShoah with diverse members of the community will help us to see the shared struggles and commonalities between us as humans.
“If we are to truly honor the memory of the Holocaust victims and help to ensure we do not have another large-scale genocidal carnage and extermination of a group of people we must be able to see the pain and effects of hatred on all members of the human family,” said Ella Nayor, Laboratory Theater of Florida Holocaust and Human Rights Education Outreach Director.
The use of instrumental music, song, and special lighting will allow patrons and guests the opportunity to better understand the importance of honoring the memories of those murdered, as well as the need to educate each new generation so to help prevent another Holocaust from happening again.
Join us for a night of unity and connection on Tuesday, April 30th at 7 pm. Tickets are on sale now for $10, and donations will be collected for the Lab’s Holocaust and Human Rights Education to further the work of human rights education in our community. For tickets, call 239.218.0481.
by Annette Trossbach, Producing Artistic Director, The Laboratory Theater of Florida, using survey results from 100 SWFL theater artists involved in any theatrical production in southwest Florida (including high school, community, college, and professional theatrical productions) over the last ten years.
“I have had a Director stick his tongue down my throat. I have overheard a Director complaining about my personal boundaries to a cast member he is close with. I have seen text messages that my friends have gotten from a Director who wanted to get with them. And this was in a private high school. I know about intimacy choreographers. I’ve heard about them but I have never had the pleasure of working with one. I think it’s sorely needed in Fort Myers. PS. My experience in High school theatre arts has left me not sure if I even want to do theatre anymore.”
(One of the written responses to the survey)
Download the full report here.
