The Laramie Project

ACT Youth Theatre proudly present The Laramie Project directed by Hasan Dixon.

The Laramie Project is a 2000 play by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theatre Project,  about the reaction to the murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming.  The murder was denounced as a hate crime and brought attention to the lack of hate crime laws in various US states, including Wyoming.

After Matthew’s murder in 1998, members of the Tectonic Theatre Project in New York City travelled to Laramie, Wyoming, to interview residents about how the attack on Matt had affected the town. These transcripts were transformed into the play The Laramie Project, which tells the stories of real people who lived at the epicenter of one of the nation’s most heinous anti-gay hate crimes.

An example of verbatim theatre, the play draws on hundreds of interviews conducted by the theatre company with inhabitants of the town, company members’ own journal entries, and published news reports. It is divided into three acts, and eight actors portray more than sixty characters in a series of short scenes.