25 years later, the play takes on new meaning

SATVIKA NITYA / ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

The Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies Theatre was home to USD’s staged reading of “The Laramie Project” last Saturday. Directed by Soroyo Rowley, a part-time lecturer in the theatre department at USD, the play was read by seven students who rehearsed for two weeks to perform the 75-minute production. 

“The Laramie Project” was a play written in the year 2000 by Moisés Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theater Project about the world’s reaction to the horrific 1998 murder of a gay University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shepard, in Laramie, Wyoming. Shepard was beaten, tortured and left to die on the outskirts of Laramie on the night of Oct. 6, 1998. After being found by rescuers and taken to the hospital, Shepard died from severe head injuries six days later, surrounded by his family.

This incident caused a massive outcry for justice not only in Laramie but worldwide, and there was a huge sense of relief felt when both the men responsible for Shepard’s murder were convicted of first-degree murder. In the year following the murder, Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater conducted over 200 interviews of people related to Shepard or the case in general. The transcripts of these interviews were then turned into a documentary-style play and named “The Laramie Project.”

The play deals with heavy subject matters like homophobia, tolerance, violence, grief, acceptance, justice, religion and morality. In the years after its making, the play is routinely studied in schools as a method for teaching prejudice and tolerance. Coincidentally, on the day of the performance of “The Laramie Project” at USD, it was the 25th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death, which made this performance monumental and extremely sentimental. 

The director of the play, Soroyo Rowley, explained the process of choosing the play and directing it.

“Well it’s funny because there’s a committee that chooses the plays we do at USD and they chose this because it is a play that can be very flexible and you can do it with a few actors or a lot of actors, and you can do creative casting,” Rowley said. “We chose the date just kind of based off of what was good for the department and what was practical. And then we found out that we had accidentally scheduled the performance for the week of the 25th anniversary of Matthew Shepard [passing away] and then we were like, ‘that is a crazy coincidence.’”

Since the play deals with extremely triggering topics, Rowley also discussed what they had to do in order to help maintain a safe space for students while directing the play.

“Because it’s such a heavy subject matter, I wanted to take a very trauma-informed approach,” Rowley said. “I knew that we wouldn’t want to do the full show, so I cut it down almost in half from like over 2 hours to 75 minutes, so that was one way to deal with the heavy material. Another thing we did was we made sure that the rehearsal process was fun. Every rehearsal was a party, and we put together this queer joy playlist to help with lightening the environment.”

USD senior Daniel Rosales, who was a part of the reading, agreed with this sentiment and talked about why this story was important to tell to the audience.

“From the very beginning of our first read-through to the final performance it was a very open space and we were allowed to express our opinions on how this text made us feel and what was going through our heads and contribute to a lot of the creativity to this piece,” Rosales said. “It really meant a lot that it also just had such topical and interesting themes that are currently on students’ minds.”

Following Matthew Shepard’s death, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, the two people responsible for Shepard’s murder, were sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Shortly afterward, Shepard’s family set up the “Matthew Shepard Foundation” to honor their son and provide a place for outreach, advocacy and resource programs for others in need. 

“It’s important to think that 25 years is a long time, but all these people are still around today,” Rosales said. “You realize that Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson are still in prison. All the lives that Matthew Shepard’s death affected are still being affected today, and it’s not just in the ways that his death is affecting them but everything that his death is caused in the terms of social justice.”

“The Laramie Project” has over 60 characters that  contribute to telling the story of Matthew Shepard. From the description of the events that preceded the violent attack, the crime itself, the hours that followed and the months that the court case lasted are all covered in great emotional detail during the course of the play. 

With only seven actors and one narrator present to carry out the character  heavy script at USD’s take on the play, one would assume that it would be really hard for the audience to keep up with the story. 

But throughout the performance, the audience was captivated by the emotional depth provided by the actors. There was a clear change in gait, tone of voice, accents and body languages seen in every actor that switched between one charcater to another. And without taking away from the main intent and gravity of the story, the performance provided the perfect amount of levity through adding satirical delivery for bigoted characters.

USD senior Vita Olson who attended the play talked about her reaction to watching the students’ performance.

“I think it was an amazing production, they did such an incredible job of capturing Matthew’s story and everything that has come out of it,” Olson said. “They created an amazing sense of support and community through their performance.”

The performance was followed by a reception which was aided by discussion cards that housed questions about the performance and the audience’s reaction to it. This helped push the conversation started during the course of the play forward. 

The play’s timely production at USD helped honor Matthew Shepard’s legacy and started a long-standing discussion about progress and the lack of it regarding the LGBTQ+ community in our society today.