Stories of Sept. 11 victims to be read aloud at Reitz Student Union

August 31, 2011

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The lives of more than 2,000 victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will be remembered during a series of readings aloud on the University of Florida campus, starting Friday.

For five days, volunteers will read the book “Portraits 9/11/01,” a series of non-traditional obituaries originally published in The New York Times as “Portraits of Grief” during the months following the attacks. The portraits honored 2,310 of the nearly 3,000 victims.

The event, organized by the University of Florida College Of Fine Arts and the School of Theatre and Dance, coincides with the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11. The entire series of portraits will be read over the course of five days at the Reitz Student Union amphitheater. The portraits will be read in alphabetical order, with the reader positioned at a microphone in the amphitheater. Passers-by are welcome to stop and listen.

The readings will begin Friday; after a break for the Labor Day weekend, they will continue Sept. 6-9. Participants will read the portraits from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., totaling 60 hours in five days.

Volunteers from the UF School of Theatre and Dance as well as other schools and supporters from the community will read in 30-minute shifts.

Tim Altmeyer, a theater professor, proposed the project after participating in a similar reading at Ground Zero in New York City on the fifth anniversary of the attacks.

“I read from the book for an hour like a street preacher, book in hand, no microphone, to men and women in suits and tourists with cameras pushing by, trying to overcome the sounds of construction and work week traffic,” he said. “And I was amazed by the small crowds that would gather for minutes at a time to listen to these stories, to learn a little bit about the faces of 9/11.”

Altmeyer wanted to share that experience with students and his new home of Gainesville.

“And for a school dedicated to the art of storytelling through dance and theater, this event seems like an appropriate way to gather together and honor those who lost their lives on that awful day — telling the stories they left behind,” he said.

Volunteers may sign up to read at the School of Theatre and Dance front desk located on the second floor of the Nadine McGuire Pavilion or may email their requests to read to Altmeyer at taltmeyer@ufl.edu.