“Investigations of bigotry take us to strange times, strange places and strange corners of the human heart.” David Marr, The High Price of Heaven.

In 1998 Matthew Shepard fought for life after being crucified on a fence in Laramie, Wyoming: the victim of a gay bashing, something others have come to call a ‘hate crime’. Months after the American media bore witness to this event, Moises Kaufman and the New York-based Tectonic Theatre Project travelled to Laramie to help piece together a story from this community and the mosaic of humanity all living under the one sky in a small American town.

Rather than being a dramatization of events, The Laramie Project is a very human story of choices, prejudice, hatred and the unpeeling of a town in all its confluences, conflicts and contradictions and all in the actual words of the people of Laramie. In the same way that Company B’s 1993 production of Aftershocks found a resonance beyond its community in Newcastle, the personal narratives in The Laramie Project show that through the prism of a single, appalling crime not only can justice be found but also Matthew Shepard’s most enduring legacy – the redemptive power of love.

Cast

Josef Ber
Mitchell Butel
Lynette Curran
Russell Dykstra
Eliza Logan
Tara Morice
Anthony Phelan
Alicia Talbot

Team

Developed by Moises Kaufman & members of the Tectonic Theater Project
Director Kate Gaul
Lighting Designer Rory Dempster
Set Designer Brian Thompson
Costume Designer Jenny Irwin
Composer/Sound Designer Garth Paine
Stage Manager Rebecca Anderson
Assistant Stage Manager Kylie Mascord