In 1998, director-playwright Moiss Kaufman dispatched
members of his Tectonic Theater Project to visit Laramie, Wyoming to
record the impact and implications of the murder of Matthew Shepard. The
result of this testimony became The Laramie Project, his docudrama on
the impact the crime had on the community.
This method of
interviewing individuals to represent various points of view was
groundbreaking in the way it explored the subject with breadth and
depth. Nor did Kaufman and his team exploit the tragedy, rather they
sought to understand how a community dealt with such a shocking crime.
Last
year, Kauffman and members of the revisited Laramie for a reality
check, resulting in The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, which
premiered a year ago in nearly 150 cities throughout the country on the
tenth anniversary of Shepards death. This year Kaufman has put both
sections together, along with some additional material, in what he calls
The Laramie Residency.
There were, though, some positive changes in Laramie, Kaufman
said in a phone interview this week. "There is an AIDS walk now that
goes through town and ends up in the cowboy bar and there is drag show
that goes on to raise money. Thats change. There is the Shepard
symposium for social justice every year and kids from all over the
country come. The conversation has changed."
Out actor Kelli
Simpkins, one of three of the original cast members in the new play,
thought twice about revisiting Laramie. "Its an emotionally hard show
to do. When we finished the original play in La Jolla and I thought that
was the end. I also thought ten years later would feel historical and
unnecessary. This play is still relevant and resonant to a frightening
degree. I am more emotionally present with the work," she noted.
The
play came to her at a pivotal time in her life and career. "It was a
life changing moment for me. I was having a lot of questions about who I
was. I had come out two years prior and was questioning if I could be
out as a working actor and find work that was really meaningful to me.
Then going to Laramie, being in the middle of the creative work for this
and of course, the poetry of the words from the people of Laramie.
"We
just finished performances in San Francisco," she said. "We were at the
Jewish Community Center there and they were wonderful, and incredibly
kind. Theyve done a lot of outreach to kids there. The woman who runs
there programming are very interested in reaching out to the LGBTQ
youth.
"Because this mostly a college town tour," she continued, "we
are doing follow up teaching residencies. They are responding
incredibly emotionally, particularly in light of to what has happened in
the last couple of months with all of the teen suicides. These plays
are resonating in ways that no one anticipating. So to us it has been
incredibly meaningful to have this kind of work in front of the next
generation because they are going to have the power to change things."
But an anecdote Simpkins recalled pointed out that as much as things change, they still stay the same.
"When
we got to Wisconsin a woman where a shirt about Prop 8 that had the
word gay on it, was gay bashed while we were there. Then we were hearing
about another incident there of another woman being bashed a couple of
years prior and nothing legally was done about it
Kaufman thinks
that the plays represent "a moment of American history where we are
right in the middle of talking about social justice and civil rights in a
way that hasnt been that candid since the early 60s. Theres a
national debate that is going on about these things. In Laramie, because
this horrific thing happened, was forced to launch themselves into the
heart of this dialogue."
Among the many community outreach
events coinciding with the Philly engagement is a pre-show lecture on
November 11, 2010 on the Matthew Shepard, James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes
Prevention Act by Matt Nosanchuk, Senior Counselor to the Assistant
Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, and representative for the
Obama Administration on LGBT Issues. This event begins at 6:30 PM and is
free for all ticket holders.
