Students in K-State’s theater program will perform “The Laramie Project” at 7:30 p.m. today through Saturday and on Oct 9-11, with a closing matinee Oct. 12 at 2:30 pm. Each presentation will take place in the Purple Masque Theatre.
The Laramie Project is a documentary, of sorts, surrounding the events of Matthew Shepard’s murder. Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, was kidnapped, robbed, pistol-whipped, tied to a fence and left in a prairie for 18 hours before he was found. He died five days later, on Oct. 12, 1998.
Shepard was gay. Although the town of his residence — Laramie, Wyo. — was small, the attack on him garnered national attention to the issue of anti-homosexual discrimination in America.
Five weeks after Shepard’s death, members of the New York-based Tectonic Theater Project visited Laramie and interviewed townspeople. Tectonic then converted the more-than 200 interviews into monologues, which became The Laramie Project, said Ariane Chapman, director of the K-State production.
The performance features nine cast members reprising the roles of the Tectonic Theater Project members as well as the townspeople who Tectonic interviewed. Therefore, each cast member plays several roles, said Mackenzie Goodwin, a junior in theater. As interviewers, the Tectonic cast members also become characters in the play, she said.
Throughout the performance, a narrator announces the role of whoever is speaking. The actor, playing any of a wide variety of people — a Baptist minister, a police detective, a university professor, a housewife — delivers a monologue, then vanishes backstage, only to return minutes later as a doctor, a bartender, a taxi driver, or a convicted murderer. The actors slip in and out of accents and dialects in addition to minor costume changes.
“As an actress, when you’re playing 12 people, you don’t have the normal time to work on a single character,” said Blake Hallinan, a sophomore in theater. “I put more work into this than any other play I’ve been in.” Hallinan performed in “Mud, River, Stone” in February and in “Scapino” in Nov. 2007.
The Laramie Project’s closing matinee takes place on the 10-year anniversary of Shepherds’ death, Chapman said.
Led by Rev. Fred Phelps, supporters of Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church plan to protest the Friday and Saturday night productions of The Laramie Project at K-State.
According to Rev. Phelps’ website, www.godhatesfags.com, Phelps and his followers “will picket K-State’s Laramie Project, and celebrate the 10th year that Matthew Sheperd (sic) has been burning in hell, to wit: ‘Matt Sheperd has been in hell for 10 years now, with eternity left to go; with no possibility of parole, new trial, or time off for good behavior (if is were possible for a blasphemous, foul-minded, God-hating fag to have good behavior). Besides this awful fact, all else about Matt is trivial and irrelevant.’”
Ten years ago, Phelps also showed up at Shepard’s funeral.
“We do a reenactment of a Phelps scene in the play,” Chapman said. “It’s interesting that he’s a character in the play and he’s picketing the play,” she added.
Tickets to The Laramie Project cost $4 each for K-State students and $7 each for the general public.
Big events, small towns chronicled in ‘Laramie’
Published: Thursday, October 2, 2008
Updated: Saturday, October 4, 2008
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The first paragraph of this story should actually be the last paragraph. It doesn't draw me into the article, and it certainly doesn't make me want to see the play. Also, since when is "Web site" one word?
