Product DescriptionFor a year and a half following the murder of Matthew Shepard, Moises Kaufman and his Tectonic Theater Project-whose previous play, Gross Indecency, was hailed as a work of unsurpassed originality-conducted hundreds of interviews with the citizens of Laramie, Wyoming, to create this portrait of a town struggling with a horrific event.
The savage killing of Shepard, a young gay man, has become a national symbol of the struggle against intolerance. But for the people of Laramie-both the friends of Matthew and those who hated him without knowing him-the tragedy was personal. In a chorus of voices that brings to mind Thornton Wilder's Our Town, The Laramie Project allows those most deeply affected to speak, and the result is a brilliantly moving theatrical creation.
What Others Say
And Still Nothing Is Changed
I read this book and still have a hard time believing nothing has changed since this killing has taken place. If you say you are not homophobic than read The Laramie Project and you will find that we all are in one way or another. Maybe not as bad as those involved in the killing but we are all a little. I believe The Laramie Project and the DVD of the same name should be required reading in all Middle and High Schools.
Worhty Read prior to the DVD
I bought this to read prior to watching the DVD of the Laramie Project, to compare, and was glad I did. It carry's as much if not more of the drama and weightiness of the subject matter, the killing of Matthew Shepard in 1998.
An easy and quick read, it helped me identify the characters later on the DVD, and though in stage format, doesn;t read like a novel. I finsihed it in one afternoon, and if this horrific incident still concerns you, this is a good way to understand how it affected so many in a sparsly populated "city" in a huge mostly unpopulated state.
Hate knows no boundaries, but how it affected Laramie, is well done with an unusual idea. It took great courage to do this project, and shouold be more widely ... Read More
A Remarkable Theatrical Piece; A Powerful Statement
Matthew Shepard was about two months short of his twenty-second birth when he was robbed, beaten, tied to a fence post and left to die in a rural area of Wyoming. The man who found him at first thought he was a scarecrow. Rushed to Poudre Valley Hospital at Fort Collins, he died on 12 October 1998--and when Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney were arrested for the crime they resorted to a defense known as "gay panic." Matthew Shepherd had propositioned them, they said, and they were so horrified that they killed him in response.
The gay community and numerous civil rights watchdog groups were outraged by the defense, and as more and more facts came to light it seemed that the crime was somewhat more complicated than Henderson and ... Read More
Controversial?
We purchased this play because my son's High School principal decided not to allow the theater teacher to put it on at his school without even bothering to read the play before making this decision!!! Moreover, the principal essentially threatened to fire the teacher if the issue was pursued. We wanted to share this play with as many people as possible after that incident and so have been loaning it to friends, relatives, other teachers, anyone willing to read it. It is truly an important work, putting a human face on the people of Laramie, Wyoming. What happened there could happen anywhere, and we not only can't, but shouldn't, hide these difficult truths.
Different kind of drama
Based on the "Structural drama" we got a different option to see the incredible notes compiled after several interviews at Laramies' residents who was shock (as the rest of the world) for Matthew Shepards' case. I loved it.
