About The Laramie Project
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To be part of the conversation, please use the link below to submit both virtual applause and thoughts and questions that will be used for a talkback video, to be sent out to ticket holders at a late date.
It is an honor and privileged responsibility that Ponderosa Theatre Company has as theatre artists to tell this story. Although this is a story built around the catalyst of a crime, it is ultimately a story about friends, family, and neighbors. It is a story about community. It is a story that inspired hate crime legislation. But most importantly, The Laramie Project is a conversation between human beings.
We hope you will have a conversation with us.
In October 1998 in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming, Matthew Shepard, a gay 21 year old student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten and killed. This brutal hate crime became a national news sensation, bringing discrimination and violence to the forefront of media.
The Tectonic Theater Project, led by their founder Moisés Kaufman, traveled to Laramie in the aftermath of the murder with the intent of creating a theatrical portrait of a town coming to grips with horrible, hate-fueled violence. Over the course of a year and a half, the group interviewed over 200 subjects, some directly related to the case and some regular citizens of Laramie. This play is complex matrix of beliefs and reactions to a horrible hate crime. Out of these interviews, journal entries, and found texts, The Laramie Project was born.
The Laramie Project is both a sharing of perspectives on the events that transpired and a portrait of the residents and town of Laramie in the year following Matthew's murder.
Author's Note:
The Laramie Project was written through a unique collaboration by Tectonic Theater Project. During the year-and-a-half development of the play, members of the company and I traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, six times to conduct interviews with the people of the town. We transcribed and edited the interviews, then conducted several workshops in which the members of the company presented material and acted as dramaturgs in the creation of the play.
As the volume of material grew with each additional trip to Laramie, a small writers’ group from within the company began to work closely with me to further organize and edit the material, conduct additional research in Laramie, and collaborate on the writing of the play. This group was led by Leigh Fondakowski as Head Writer, with Stephen Belber and Greg Pierotti as Associate Writers.
As we got closer to the play’s first production in Denver, the actors, including Stephen Belber and Greg Pierotti, turned their focus to performance, while Leigh Fondakowski continued to work with me on drafts of the play, as did Stephen Wangh, who by then had joined us an Associate Writer and “bench coach.”
— Moisés Kaufman
