The Laramie Project

Beth Harper, Guest Director

March 7-8 and 13-15

Fir Acres Theatre Main Stage , 7:30 p.m.

Contact Fir Acres Theatre Box Office for ticket information, 503 768-7495

In 1998, Matthew Shephard was kidnapped, beaten, and left to die on a fence in Laramie, Wyoming. This 21 year-old boy was killed because he was gay. After this tragic event, Moisés Kaufman and other members of the Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie and interviewed over 200 residents. What they discovered was that "there are moments in history when a particular event brings the various ideologies and beliefs prevailing in a culture into sharp focus," and the case of Matthew Shephard reveals how our culture views homosexuality and violence. It also examined "the difference between tolerance and acceptance."

The Laramie Project has been extremely effective at moving its audience, and the New York Post wrote that it is "an amazing piece of theater…[which] leaves us sadder, wiser and tentatively more hopeful." Terry Tempest Williams calls The Laramie Project "brilliant…a bone-hard drama [that] dares to touch the hidden wound of the America West…If I could, I would stand on every street corner in America and pass this play out as a handbill for a more civil society."