The Laramie Project: Real hatred, real terror, real fear…and real hope

Perhaps, like Jeff, I “bent the rules” somewhat by choosing The Laramie Project—which is neither a novel nor fiction. And, like Jeff, I have those same questions about whether this work of literature may be classified as YA, but I would have absolutely no reservations at all about using it in a high school class. The Laramie Project is a play written by Moisés Kaufman and the Members of Tectonic Theater Project. After the murder of 21 year-old University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, a victim of homophobic hatred, in Laramie, Wyoming on October 7, 1998, Kaufman and the members of his theater project visited Laramie six times over the course of the following two years to interview Matthew’s friends and the community members of Laramie. The results of those interviews were transcribed and formulated into the text of The Laramie Project, which dramatizes the world’s response to a senseless act of hatred and violence and the Laramie community’s response to both Matthew’s murder and the rest of the world’s perception of Laramie as a bigoted, homophobic, intolerant hotbed of hatred.

Although one would need to exercise great caution in teaching this text in a high school class (it would definitely arouse a powerful emotional response—I cried a couple of times as I was reading it—and it rather bluntly addresses issues such as “gay panic,” religious intolerance, homophobia, and gay bashing), I am not aware of any other text (suitable for a secondary classroom) that confronts these issues as well or as realistically.

In the Introduction to the play, Kaufman asks what amounts to the same question Richard Miller asks: “What can we as theater artists do as a response to [Matthew Shepard’s murder]? And, more concretely, is theater a medium that can contribute to the national dialogue on current events?” (p. vi). The Laramie Project, featuring true Bakhtinian heteroglossia, employs the voice of the community, from an administrative assistant at the University of Wyoming who believes that Matthew “was just a barfly” who “pushed himself around” and “flaunted” his sexuality (p. 64) to Matthew’s own father, who states, at the sentencing of one of his son’s convicted murderers, “Matt’s beating, hospitalization, and funeral focused worldwide attention on hate. Good is coming out of evil. People have said enough is enough. I miss my son, but I am proud to be able to say that he is my son” (p. 96).

The Laramie Project is a unique and potent work of literature that illustrates how hatred, ignorance, intolerance, and homophobia can kill. What is truly remarkable is that it manages to also show how communication, empathy, art, and love can conquer hatred and prejudice.