Name: The Laramie Project
ISBN: 9780375727191

Moisés Kaufman

Tectonic Theater Project

A chorus of voices brings to life the thoughts and feelings of the people of Laramie, Wyoming, in the wake of the murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man, in a moving, intensely personal theatrical presentation. Original. 15,000 first printing.

The Laramie Project

Paula Plaza Ponte 

These plays were easy to read because of their telling. Kaufman and his crew did a great job curating what seems to me, an honest tale of what happened in Laramie years ago and then ten years later. I found that they were able to touch on the most sensitive bits, the silence and shame, to the hardest, most complex and the important aspects of a community fighting for who it thinks it is to what happens after all that's been said and done. The "truth" always emerges and many run away from it. 

Having said that, reading both plays also proved to be really difficult. I had to stop at moments - imagining Matthew, bloody and cold, tied to a fence, listening to the two perpetrators tell their stories ten years later, the parts about 20/20's coverage, the naming it a hoax, to their forgetting or wanting to forget - I wanted to throw the book across the room often, from a mix of emotions I couldn't and still can't name. 

This is an important book. One, many of you should read. The content is mature but the language and medium, accessible. Let's talk if you are interested.

Belle

One of the best plays I've seen; it will stay with you long after you leave the theatre.

The Laramie Project

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