In Centennial Hall last night, a large, enthusiastic crowd of more than a thousand became enraptured as ten black-clad student actors sat with microphones and music stands holding 3-ring binders that contained their scripts, and brought The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later to vivid and mesmerizing life. Without any fanfare, a set, fancy lighting or sound effects, with only projections of oversized photos of the town and the Wyoming landscape behind them as enhancement, this troupe joined their counterparts – all of them in communication with one another – playing in 150 cities worldwide, in every state of the U.S. and abroad in Hong Kong, Madrid and Melbourne, Australia, to name only a few.
From a star-studded event in Los Angeles featuring Bradley Whitford, Mary McDonnell, Sharon Lawrence, Mary McCormack and Charlotte Rae to small towns like Northampton, Mass, from the production in Laramie itself at the University of Wyoming’s 1000 seat theater to the Alice Tully Hall in New York, tens of thousands of audience members listened to powerful words and remembrances of a tragedy that has altered the public dialogue and had a profound effect on cultural sensibilities everywhere, like it or not. It galvanized the struggle in the GLBT community for civil rights, among other ramifications.
The new production also revisited the WPA's Federal Theatre Project experiment in the 1930s. On Oct. 27, 1936, simultaneous productions of "It Can't Happen Here," based on Sinclair Lewis' novel, were initiated in 22 cities. This inspired Mois's Kaufman and his cohorts at Tectonic Theater Project, whose original Laramie Project has been produced over 2,000 times since its origination shortly after Matt’s murder, who asked, “What if we could get 100 theaters to do this?”
At the end of the evening, the cast received a well-deserved standing ovation from an audience that had collectively hung on their every word throughout the almost two-hour performance. The young actors, five women and five men, all played multiple parts (85 people interviewed in all), ranging from elderly to youthful, including the playwrights themselves, and local police officers and politicians, students and residents, a priest, Matthew Shepard’s mother Judy, even the two killers, who were interviewed in prison, in short, an entire multi-dimensional population, who expressed variously their views on what, if anything, had changed in Laramie in the 10 years since the murder.
Playwright Doug Wright, who portrayed Kaufman onstage at the La Jolla Playhouse production, was quoted in the LA Times: “We don't think that theater has the power to change the world, and I think Moises' plays prove otherwise."
The U.S House of Representatives recently passed a bill expanding the legal definition of a violent federal hate crime to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. The vote passed 281 to 146. Similar legislation is under consideration in the Senate.
The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act strengthens existing laws giving the Department of Justice jurisdiction in crimes where the perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability were motivating factors.
