Following a sold-out spring production of “The Laramie Project,” participants in Greenfield Community College’s theater program are hitting the stage with “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later” this weekend.
The production had its first show at GCC’s Sloan Theater on Nov. 5, and continues through Sunday, Nov. 15, when it will conclude with a matinee performance.
While it is often used as a companion piece with “The Laramie Project,” if attendees haven’t seen the original, “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later” doesn’t require prior knowledge from the first play.
“We had a lot of success with Laramie, the first part … it seemed to really strike a chord with the community,” said Tom Geha, chair of GCC’s Theater Department and director of the play. “We thought, ‘Well, let’s do ‘Ten Years Later’ as a companion piece.’ … I used a similar style I used for the first part, so it doesn’t change too much of the direction. More than anything, the characters, there are some slight changes.”
“The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later” sees members of the Tectonic Theater Project visit Laramie, Wyoming, 10 years after the murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. Shepard, a gay man, was 21 at the time of his death in 1998. His murder brought the fact that many states (including Wyoming) had little to no laws regarding hate crimes to the forefront of public attention. “The Laramie Project” visits the town of Laramie in the aftermath of the murder, exploring how the community reacted to a tragedy of this scale.
“The first one is all about the tragic event. You learn about Matthew Shepard being tortured and dying, and it kind of leads up to that point, and then it goes beyond that. … You already know the end of the story when you’re watching that first one,” Geha explained. “In the second part … I’ve been talking to the audience members … and the second part, what I’m hearing is [that] they go pretty deep in their head of the overall world that we live in. This one deals with the rewriting of history.
“It became this, how we rewrite things, how we make things palatable to our existence,” Geha continued. “As people, as towns, as countries, so it’s pretty fascinating to watch that twist or manipulation of facts and see how they handle it as a community.”
Geha said many of the younger students in the production of both “The Laramie Project” and “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later” were unaware of the history surrounding this Wyoming city. Through the production of both plays, Geha said some students learned about The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was signed into law in 2009.
This is a verbatim play, meaning no liberties are taken with the dialogue. All the words spoken on stage in the Sloan Theater are words that were spoken during interviews with residents of Laramie, conducted by the Tectonic Theater Project.
Unlike the original “The Laramie Project,” “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later” interviews Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew, and the two men found guilty of Matthew’s murder, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson.
“In the first part it was just from … jail transcripts or interviews with police,” Geha said of how McKinney and Henderson were used as characters in the original play. “But in this one, Tectonic Theater [Project] interviewed the actual killers in jail, and that’s new to the second part.”
The second weekend of shows starts with a 7 p.m. showing on Friday, Nov. 13, before another performance at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14. The performances will wrap up with a matinee on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 2 p.m. The Friday night showing is followed by a talkback with the actors. Tickets for any showing can be purchased at gccfor.me/tickets.
“I’m really happy with the cast and the crew. We have a large crew supporting these actors,” Geha said. “I think, overall, it’s just been wonderful. … Doing both part one and part two, doing both of those was really good for the students to get that completion, but also to learn history, and [how] we got to where we are, and some of the sacrifices that were made.”
