The Laramie Project Takes the Stage Friday and Saturday

Swampscott High drama students will perform The Laramie Project on Friday and Saturday, a play crafted from hundreds of interviews after the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay University of Wyoming student.

The play is at 7 p.m. in the Swampscott High auditorium.

The Laramie Project includes a multitude of voices — from townspeople to university people to media people, and from young people to older people — expressing sadness, outrage, ignorance, disbelief, shame and compassion as they respond to a murder and hate crime in their backyard.

Matthew Shepard's captors kidnapped and tortured and left him tied to a fence overnight. Days later he died in the hospital.

He was the victim of the assault because he was gay.  

Swampscot High drama students have been working on the Laramie Project since September, said Director James Pearse.

More Information about the Laramie Project:

Moises Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half in the aftermath of the beating and during the trial of the two young men accused of killing Shepard.  They conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town.  Some people interviewed were directly connected to the case, and others were citizens of Laramie, and the breadth of their reactions to the crime is fascinating.  Kaufman and Tectonic Theater members have constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience from these interviews and their own experiences.  The Laramie Project is a breathtaking theatrical collage that explored the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable.

Swampscott High School Drama Club The Laramie Project Disclaimer: The Laramie Project is for mature audiences only as it contains strong language and subject matter. During the year and a half development of the play, members of the Tectonic Theater Company conducted interviews with the people of Laramie, Wyoming where gay University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shepard, was murdered. This script is a verbatim compilation of these interviews. Audience members under seventeen must be accompanied by a parent/guardian or have a signed permission form, available at the high school.  Students and young adults seventeen and older will be asked for identification.