Moorehead-MSUM } plays host to timely topic of gay marriage

http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/339490/

 MOORHEAD – When Jennifer Tuttle married her husband Ryan in 2008, she shared the ceremony with her best friends Michael and Jay. When she exchanged vows with her husband, Michael and Jay stood up for the couple. When it was her friends’ turn to form a union, she and her husband stood up for them.

By: John Lamb, INFORUM

 If you go 

What: “Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays”

When: 7 tonight

Where: Gaede Stage, Center for the Arts, Minnesota State University Moorhead

Info: The performance is free. (701) 729-8880

MOORHEAD – When Jennifer Tuttle married her husband Ryan in 2008, she shared the ceremony with her best friends Michael and Jay.

When she exchanged vows with her husband, Michael and Jay stood up for the couple. When it was her friends’ turn to form a union, she and her husband stood up for them.

“So I’ve had a gay marriage,” Tuttle says with a laugh.

All of which makes her roles in “Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays” that much more personal.

The plays, a collection of short works by nine writers, are being produced tonight across the country in different locations.

The Fargo-based troupe Theatre B and Minnesota State University Moorhead teamed up to present “Standing on Ceremony” at MSUM’s Gaede Stage. The only other performance in Minnesota is in Minneapolis. In North Dakota the works are being produced at Bismarck State College.

Director Brad Delzer says the plays, which he says are by “The A-list writers in America,” represent what the theatre is best at: “It deals with what is happening now.”

Specifically, he says the works, which range from satire to heavier-hitting drama to introspective comedies and even a look at social media, all reflect what is being said in the national conversation about gay marriage.

One piece, a Facebook discussion called “On Facebook” by Doug Wright, seems especially timely. One of the topics that comes up is Britney Spears’ weekend-long marriage – in 2004 to Jason Alexander – and asks why those who think same-sex weddings are an affront to the sanctity of marriage don’t campaign against quickie weddings and divorces.

That same question has been plastered all over Facebook since last week when reality TV star Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from her husband 72 days after their multi-million dollar wedding.

In “On Facebook,” Tuttle reads the part of someone who supports same sex civil unions, but not gay marriage.

Just as the plays range from comedy to drama, the viewpoints range from advocating for gay marriage to acceptance of them and, ultimately, disapproval.

While this staged reading calls to mind a similar production of “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later,” staged in 2009 at the Fargo Theatre, the performances are significantly different.

“Laramie” objectively explored how the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard affected his Wyoming town.

In “Standing on Ceremony,” there is no question where the writers stand.

“It is definitely pro-gay marriage,” says Tuttle, an MSUM theatre professor. “It’s quite funny and not didactic or heavy-handed. We’re working very hard to make sure it’s not a sermon. It’s a fun night of theater, with a message.”

It’s a message that most in the crowd already know, say cast members.

“This show is a bit more preaching to the choir,” says Stephen Wilson, who will be part of tonight’s reading and who was in the ensemble of that 2009 presentation of “The Laramie Project.”

“ ‘Laramie’ was the first time the general audience had to see and hear what gays and lesbians have to face every day,” Wilson says.

While “Laramie” was first produced 13 years ago Wilson says, “What it means to be gay in our culture, there are still questions to grapple with.”

Tuttle got to know some of the real people quoted in “The Laramie Project” due to her husband’s work as a documentary filmmaker and she recalls Judy Shepard commenting on, “How far we’ve come, but how far we have to go” after the death of her son.

“The idea that there is a group of citizens in our country that is denied their constitutional rights is stunning,” Tuttle says. “I’m hoping someday we’ll look back at all of these plays and think, ‘I’m really glad people fought for this, but it seems sort of silly we even had to.’ ”

But with Minnesotans facing a vote on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage next year, tonight’s performance is timely for people who are involved in this issue.

“I hope whatever involvement they’ve had up to this point, they’ll take another step forward,” the actor says. “If they’ve been signing online petitions, I hope they’ll write a letter to their congressmen or congresswomen. Or if they’ve written a letter, they’ll march in a parade and be seen somewhere physically.”