She left her brain for scientists to explore, but those who try to understand the human condition might have been as well-served by examining her heart, which was huge. Laura Marchant, a longtime and luminous figure in local theater, died April 29 after a nearly three-year battle with brain cancer.
A Cal State Long Beach alumna and founding member of Loud*R*Mouth Theatre Company, Marchant was an actor, a director and, above all else, a huge champion of local theater. Her plays were always more than mere entertainments, whether she was setting Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dreamin the Louisiana swamps during Reconstruction or being one of the first local theater artists to understand and appreciate the power of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues.
Marchant cared deeply about the possibilities of theater and the potentialities of people, and her loss diminishes us all.
A MEMORIAL FOR LAURA MARCHANT WILL BE HELD AT CAL STATE LONG BEACH'S STUDIO THEATRE IN EARLY JUNE.
Joel Beers has written about theater and other stuff for this infernal rag since its very first issue in, when was that again???