<p>Although the behaviour of those football players and other audience members doesn’t surprise me, it does sadden me. The first production of The Laramie Project opened almost 14 years ago, and what a shame that there are still hateful people in the country who react like that. These are the people who should be sitting quietly and paying attention! They might actually learn something. What a sad commentary on those individuals and on that school, if nothing further than a forced one person apology was the consequence.</p>
<p>I’ve seen dozens and dozens of performances of plays like Rent, Spring Awakening, TLP, Take Me Out, Avenue Q, Hair, etc. and have never seen anything remotely like that behaviour. I have to say, though, that I would never consider the production of those shows “brave” by a university. We have several friends who have been in various professional productions of Rent. Those who did the tours that included stops in southern cities were often the target of hateful comments, although never as bad as was seemingly the case at the Univ. of Mississippi. </p>
<p>The type of productions done at a school was definitely on the list of things my D was interested in when she applied and that was years ago. She wanted a school that did a variety of different types of plays and musicals, and not the standard dinner theatre fare. Student written and run productions were also of importance in her research. Good theatre should challenge and expand the horizons of audience members and performers.</p>