Play about Matthew Shepard killing draws host of top local actors.

Byline: Fred Crafts The Register-Guard

Actors Cabaret of Eugene director Joe Zingo thinks big. Very, very big.

Next up for him is a play - "The Laramie Project" - with a cast of 52 actors. Let's repeat that - 52 actors.

OPENING THIS WEEK

Name actors, around Eugene.

Actors such as Anna Barnett, Jonathan Beedle, Maida Belove, Kevin Boling, Matt Bonham, Kathryn Bowman, Thyra Boyd, Stan Boyd, David Stuart Bull, Bo Caldwell, William Campbell, Becky Croson-LaChapelle, Jim Curtiss, John Elliott, Greg Foote, Mark Garner, Cynthia Gomez, Denny Guehler, Carol Horne, Susan Keller, Nick Laemmer, Jesse Lally, Kathy LaMontagne, Tim Lanz, Rick Lloyd, Steve Mandell, Bruce McCarthy, Katie McClatchey, Daniel Morrison, George Morse, Pat Morse, John Muellner, Michael Munkvold, Benjamin Newman, Mindy Nierenstein, Rory Pattison, Janet Reed, Sue Schroeder-White, Bary Shaw, Maggie Tryk, Mark VanBeever, Gaylord Walker, Michael Walker, Gerald Walters, Kasey Wickman, Pat Williams, Jordan Wolfer, Chris Yates and Steve Yates.

What would draw all these busy actors together in the same place at the same time?

Only something as powerful as "The Laramie Project," and somebody as committed to it as Zingo, who has been wanting to do this show for some time.

Based on an actual event, "The Laramie Project" concerns the murder of a 20-year-old gay man, Matthew Shepard, in Laramie, Wyo. In October 1998, the University of Wyoming student was kidnapped, beaten, tied to a fence and left to die on the prairie outside Laramie. His bloody and battered body was discovered the next day, and he died several days later in a hospital.

When news of the event made international headlines, playwright Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie during a 12-month period to interview townspeople. They then spent another year arranging the material into a dramatic form.

The result was a theatrical piece that Time magazine called ``one of the 10 best plays of 2000.'' And it was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience.

Unique, it certainly is.

The play has no set - just pools of light, into which march a parade of characters who look straight into the audience and make short statements. A narrator puts the story in motion, but the predominant dialogue resembles a series of sound bites from broadcast news.

Zingo is taking on a project of this scope for one reason:

"I wanted the acting community to make the commitment to the Eugene community that this horrendous act will never happen in Eugene," Zingo says.

And apparently he is not alone in his thinking.

When Zingo put out a call to actors for the project, he was overwhelmed by the response.

`The commitment to the cause has been just astronomical,' he says. `A lot of them have called me and said, `I don't care what part it is or whether it's one or two lines. I want to do this.' '

Besides producing an unusual play, Zingo is doing it in an unusual way.

Because Zingo's Actors Cabaret of Eugene holds only about 100 people, he and co-artistic director Jim Roberts rented the 700-seat Lane Community College Performance Hall to accommodate larger audiences.

Because he has enlisted the services of 52 actors - some of whom are in productions now on the boards at local theaters - he is holding only two rehearsals and running the show for only two performances.

While the original script called for eight actors to play all the roles, Zingo believes the play will pack more of an emotional wallop if every character is played by a different actor.

"I cast it deliberately with very experienced performers and with relatively inexperienced performers so you can get the true concept of what it must have been like to hear the actual people interviewed," Zingo says. "When one individual after another after another after another comes on stage, hopefully you will lose sight of the fact that you're watching a play but you're dealing with individuals talking to you about what has happened."

Zingo, who has directed many other plays that deal frankly with the human condition (``Death of a Salesman,'' ``Kindertransport,'' ``Tracers,'' ``Angels in America,'' ``Gross Indeceny''), believes this super-sized project should find a receptive audience in a community still making sense of the Thurston High School shooting.

"We're doing it for the community as a learning process ... a coping process," he says. ``People all over the world have questioned Matthew Shepard's death and thought, `My lord, could this happen to other people for other reasons?' Yeah, it could.'' But not if Zingo can do something to stop it.

Reach Fred Crafts at 338-2575 or [e-mail].

PLAY PREVIEW

The Laramie Project

What: Moises Kaufman's docu-drama is based on the murder of student Matthew Shepard; directed for Actors Cabaret of Eugene by Joe Zingo

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Where: Lane Community College Performance Hall, 4000 E. 30th Ave.

How much: $12, through Actors Cabaret box office (683-4368)

CAPTION(S):

Director Joe Zingo, followed by Greg Foote, works his way through a crowd of cast members during preparation of ``The Laramie Project.''