THE LARAMIE PROJECT
By Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theatre Project
Directed by Krista Hansen
February 27 through March 1, 2009
Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Sunday, 3:00 p.m.
Can a town be guilty of murder? This moving and thought-provoking drama about the aftermath of the nationally publicized murder of a gay college student takes a powerful look at the price of prejudice and the effects of hate crimes and homophobia on a community.
In October 1998 a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severely beaten and left to die, tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. Matthew Shepard's bloody, bruised and battered body was not discovered until the next day, and he died several days later in an area hospital. Moisés Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half in the after Shepard's death and during the trial of the two young men accused of killing him. They conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town. Some people interviewed were directly connected to the case, others were citizens of Laramie, and the breadth of their reactions to the crime is fascinating. Kaufman and Tectonic Theater members have constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience from these interviews and their own experiences. THE LARAMIE PROJECT is a breathtaking theatrical collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable.
Mature subject matter and language.
Videos