Although many extra curricular activities were put on hold so far this semester, theater students performed the fall play The Laramie Project Nov. 6-8. On Friday Nov. 6, the play was streamed at 7:30 pm and was originally available to download from Saturday Nov. 7 to Sunday, Nov. 8, although after receiving multiple requests, it was also available to purchase, Saturday, Nov. 14. The cost was $8.

The Laramie Project, written by Moisés Kaufman and the Members of Tectonic Theater Project, is about the real-life murder of an openly gay college student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998. The play follows the trial-which gained national attention and sparked protests and hate crime laws throughout the country- and interviews of people in the town. The two men behind the attack, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, were arrested. Henderson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two life sentences. Aaron McKinney was found guilty and charged with murder, kidnapping, and robbery.

“This is a show I have wanted to do for a long time – an important work of American Theatre that everyone needs to experience at some point in their lifetime.  It’s a monumental story of real-life events that had an enormous impact on our culture, horrible as it was at the time,” theater director Eric Christiansen said.

Due to COVID Christiansen had to figure out how students could still perform a play safely. “It was quite different – there are an enormous number and amount of in-person activities that are part of theatre production, beginning with Auditions and continuing through rehearsals all the way from Opening Night to Closing,” said Christiansen. “We had no in-person activities at all until final filming of the show as a video production.  Everything was done virtually via Zoom and the entire concept for the show reflected this, creating a “zoom-like” experience, or a kind of documentary style film for our audience.”

The play consisted of a series of “interviews” with various members of the Laramie community who gave their thoughts about the murder such as Shepard’s friends and the Laramie Sheriff, as well as the theater group members who traveled to Laramie when doing research for the play.

Junior Tommy Young, who played Dennis Shepard, Aaron Kreifels, and Jedadiah Schultz, also added his opinion on how different it was putting on a production during a pandemic. “Performing a play during a pandemic was definitely a unique experience. One of my favorite things about being in theater is going to rehearsal every day and seeing my castmates,” he said. “Since we had to do everything virtually this year, it was really tough to feel the same way I do when I’m with other people in a creative space. I think it helped me with my acting abilities because I had to manufacture a lot more on my own because I wasn’t able to play off of anyone else.”

A lot of his fellow cast members also agreed that it was a different experience. “I think this show has been a very unique experience because of the pandemic, for example I didn’t even meet the cast or director in person until tech week!” freshman Jocelyn Dummert, who played Amanda Gronich, Marge Murray, and Rulon Stacey, said. “Usually, by the time tech week comes around we are all one big family, freaking out about the show together. This time, it still was fun, but an entirely new experience. I am really glad we were able to film the show and get real screen acting experience.” 

Almost the entire process was done completely online until they actually filmed the play. “It was challenging in the way that we had to do a lot of work outside of rehearsal because we couldn’t rehearse like we used to before. During filming, it was stressful to try and make sure you got a good take, and we had to be distanced and quiet, which was very different than the usual tech week,” junior Macy Ortloff, who played multiple people in the production, including Bill McKinney, Matt Galloway, and Jonas Slonaker, said.

Although most of the process was completely new and different, some things didn’t change. Cast members still had their share of their favorite characters to play, and their hardest. “I think that the hardest character was Jonas Slonaker. I loved that character too, but there wasn’t much I could find about him when I was doing research,” Ortloff said. “I had to think about age a lot with him, that really helped me make my choices. I often found myself playing him younger and more hurt and angry, but an older man wouldn’t get himself upset over something he’s known and seen his whole life. When I realized that, it really helped me get into character.”

Dummert felt that playing characters in front of a screen was more difficult. “I think my favorite and the most difficult character to play was Rulon Stacy. I really enjoy playing more serious, deep characters,” she said. “When it came to filming, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to make myself cry and stay in character, with those cameras in my face, and all those people watching me so closely. Luckily, I was able to get the job done.”

Even though the big ‘performance’ was actually in front of a screen, it didn’t mean that the actors put any less than their best effort in. “Dennis Shepard was the most enjoyable and the most difficult. He was very difficult to play because there is no way to feel the exact emotion he felt while delivering his courtroom speech after his son’s death,” Young said. “I had to draw emotion from personal experiences and it wasn’t easy because I have never experienced anything close to what the Shepards did.”

The Laramie Project has a lot of weight to it, and is still very relevant today. Some cast members shared what they loved most about it and why they felt the play was important. “I love that it doesn’t comment on who the characters are, it lets the audience decide whether they agree/disagree with a character. The characters are played how they were, and that is really powerful,” Ortloff said. “You get to see true compassion and true hate in order to understand the overall story and reaction to the murder of Matthew Shepard. I think it’s important to watch because it helps you evaluate yourself and spreads the message of love and compassion coming out of a horrible crime.”

Senior Taryn Smith, who played the Minister’s Wife, Stephen Mead Johnson, and Tiffany Edwards, added what she liked about the play and why she felt it was important to watch. “I liked how this play was about a true story and only had actual words that these people spoke,” she said. “This play is important to watch because of it being a true story about a hate crime committed on a gay student, which relates to many things happening in our world right now. Watching this play shows just how many people are affected when someone else gets hated on.”

Ortloff also brought up how and why this play is still very relevant to today. “The play makes me feel really glad because it brings light to a really big problem that is still prevalent today, maybe less, but there is still hate towards the LGBTQ+ community. It makes you wonder why people are so hateful when we are all just human,” she said. “While being a part of this show I did do my research on LGBTQ+ struggles, and how laws were created to protect them because after Matthew Shepard died, there were more and more laws being passed to prevent this violence and hate. I’m really proud of this show and everything it stands for, it’s one of my favorite shows that I have been a part of.”

The LGBTQ+ community faces much discrimination, then and now. Although people are more widely accepting, there is still so much progress for the world to make. “I think this show is still so important. Though our society is much more accepting of members of the LGBTQ+ community, the arguments made by the members of this town were not new to hear. So many people in this town defended homophobes before they would defend the victim of a hate crime,” senior Phoebe Wolf, who played many characters, including, Alison Mears, Jon Peacock, Matt Mickelson. “While there has been a lot of progress since this play was written in 1992, there’s still so much homophobia ingrained and normalized in our society. we still see these issues in the tragically high murder rate of trans people of color, and LGBTQ+ folks see this kind of ignorance through microaggressions every day.”