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David Beukema as Brian Epstein and Wade Vaughn as Joe Orton in "Traveling Light."

Cemeteries are places we go to remember loved ones, to seek solace, and commune wiht the spirits of our forefathers.

And now, at least for a few weeks, it's also where we can go to see theater.

 is premiering a new play by Lindsay Harris Friel, about an imagined encounter between English playwright 

. The meeting takes place entirely in a graveyard. Director Natalie Novacek thought "why put a story about real people in a fake setting?"

Novacek found an ally in Susan Hunter-Weir, an active volunteer with the 

Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery

, located on the corner of Lake and Cedar in Minneapolis. Hunter-Weir worked for many years counseling visual and performing arts majors at the University of Minnesota, and was thrilled at the idea of bringing theater to what's commonly known as the "Layman's Cemetery" (named for the family that used to own it).

According to Hunter-Weir, Orton and Epstein would have fit right in amongst the Minnesota settlers. The two Brits led flamboyant, indulgent and ultimately tragic lives. Orton was bludgeoned to death by his lover at the age of 34, and Epstein accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills later that same month when he was just 32.

Playwright Lindsay Harris Friel's story explores what a meeting of the two might have been like in their final days. Both went to the same school, came from similar lower-class backgrounds, and had a knack for wooing rich benefactors. Friel says it's not just their similarities, but their stark differences that make the idea of an encounter so intriguing.

Friel's story is also based on a lot of research, along with some theorizing.

But staging a play outdoors - and particularly in a cemetery - has its challenges: weather, mosquitoes, the sound of airplanes overhead.

Susan Hunter-Weir estimates that the area in the cemetery where Theatre Pro Rata will be staging the play - the "paupers' section" - covers approximately two thousand people buried in unmarked graves.

"Packed house every night," quips director Natalie Novacek.

The cast and crew of "Traveling Light" are doing their best to respect the premises. They've even brought in blank headstones for props so that they won't endanger any of the real ones. But Susan Hunter-Weir says there's no problem with walking over dead bodies:

"Traveling Light" opens tomorrow night and runs through July 28.

Arts and Culture

State of the Arts Blog

Marianne Combs

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A Minneapolis cemetery plays a starring role in Theatre Pro Rata's latest production.

“Traveling Light” among the dead

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