Students performed The Laramie Project this winter, a play in which actors portray various members of the Laramie community, the Wyoming town where college student Matthew Shepard was beaten and killed by two local men in 1998. This year’s Melissa Gold Visiting Artists, two members of the Tectonic Theater Project, the show’s creators, visited campus. Actor Andy Paris and director Leigh Fondakowski spoke with students about Matthew Shepard, the creative theater process, and the role performance can play in national conversation.
“In the media, Laramie was portrayed as a redneck, ‘Wild West’ kind of town. We thought there had to be a bigger conversation about what happened and the culture of the community. We wanted to convey who these people were. The Laramie Project became a collective experience that told the story about Matthew and the whole town.”