Cover

Acclaim for
THE LARAMIE PROJECT

“The Laramie Project is a terrific piece of theater, history, and life.… There emerges a mosaic as moving and important as any you will see on the walls of the churches of the world.… Nothing short of stunning.… You should not miss a theatrical and human event that deserves standing up for, with applause, or better yet, silently, taking an important lesson profoundly to heart.”

—New York magazine

“A riveting theatrical experience.”

—Variety

“Deeply moving … [Kaufman] has a remarkable gift for giving a compelling theatrical flow to journalistic and historical material.… [The Laramie Project] is determined to find the light in an event of harrowing darkness.”

—The New York Times

“Remarkable … [a] probing and distinctive theater piece … assembled with care, compassion and dollops of comic relief.… The high-octane performances and unique staging make this a must see for any theatergoer.”

—Daily News

“Few playwrights have cut to the heart of tragedy so unerringly.”

—The Village Voice

“Brilliant … bone-hard drama [that] dares to touch the hidden wound of the American West.… Within these pages, a healing occurs.… 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.”

—Terry Tempest Williams, author of Leap and Refuge

“A bracing, wholly original and deeply affecting piece of theater. It radiates integrity, an aching collective need to understand incomprehensible events. It portrays an American town with grace, truth, theatrical economy, compassion, wit, despair and love. [It proves that] theater can serve as witness to our deeds. It’s we who must answer one by one, for what we all create and what we destroy together.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“An amazing piece of theater.… Out of the Shepard tragedy is wrenched art.”

—The New York Post

“A complex and ultimately optimistic portrait of a town that was challenged by the most catastrophic of events.”

—USA Today

“Sad, sober and gripping.… Something nourishing has been excavated by Kaufman and his committed collaborators from the tragedy.”

—Daily Variety

“A towering theatrical accomplishment.… [The Laramie Project is] Our Town for the new millennium, capturing from real life the same sense of humanity in the raw that Thornton Wilder did years ago with the fictional Grover’s Corner. The play moves the theater in a new and different direction.”

—San Francisco Times

“An invigorating theatrical adventure.”

—David Rothenberg

Other Books by This Author

ALSO BY MOISÉS KAUFMAN

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

Title Page

Copyright

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, SEPTEMBER 2001
Copyright © 2001 by Moisés Kaufman

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

CAUTION: This play is protected in whole, in part, or in any form, under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America, the British Empire, including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union, and is subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, radio, television, and public reading, are strictly reserved. All inquiries concerning performance rights should be addressed to the author’s agent: Joyce Ketay, 1501 Broadway, Suite 1908, New York, New York 10036.

The U.S. West World Premiere was produced by The Denver Center Theatre Company, Donovan Marley, Artistic Director, in association with Tectonic Theater Project, Moisés Kaufman, Artistic Director.

Originally produced in New York City at the Union Square Theatre by Roy Gabay and Tectonic Theater Project in association with Gayle Francis and the Araca Group. Associate Producers: Mara Isaacs and Hart Sharp Entertainment.

The Laramie Project was developed in part with the support of The Sundance Theatre Laboratory.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kaufman, Moisés.
The Laramie project / Moisés Kaufman and the members of Tectonic Theater Project.—1st Vintage Books ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-53656-3
1. Shepard, Matthew, d. 1998—Death and burial—Drama. 2. Gay men—Crimes against—Drama. 3. Trials (Murder)—Drama. 4. Laramie (Wyo.)—Drama. 5. Homophobia—Drama. 6. Homicide—Drama. I. Tectonic Theater Project.
II. Title.
PR6061.A83 L37 2001
812′.54—dc21 2001026033

v3.1_r1

Dedication

Dedicated to the people of Laramie, Wyoming
and to Matthew Shepard

INTRODUCTION
by Moisés Kaufman

After all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free.

WALT WHITMAN

There are moments in history when a particular event brings the various ideologies and beliefs prevailing in a culture into sharp focus. At these junctures the event becomes a lightning rod of sorts, attracting and distilling the essence of these philosophies and convictions. By paying careful attention in moments like this to people’s words, one is able to hear the way these prevailing ideas affect not only individual lives but also the culture at large.

The trials of Oscar Wilde were such an event. When I read the transcripts of the trials (while preparing to write Gross Indecency), I was struck by the clarity with which they illuminated an entire culture. In these pages one can see not only a community dealing with the problem that Wilde presented but, in their own words, Victorian men and women telling us—three generations later—about the ideologies, idiosyncrasies, and philosophies that formed the pillars of that culture and ruled their lives.

The brutal murder of Matthew Shepard was another event of this kind. In its immediate aftermath, the nation launched into a dialogue that brought to the surface how we think and talk about homosexuality, sexual politics, education, class, violence, privileges and rights, and the difference between tolerance and acceptance.

The idea of The Laramie Project originated in my desire to learn more about why Matthew Shepard was murdered, about what happened that night, about the town of Laramie. The idea of listening to the citizens talk really interested me. How is Laramie different from the rest of the country, and how is it similar?

Shortly after the murder, I posed the question to my company, Tectonic Theater Project. What can we as theater artists do as a response to this incident? And, more concretely, is theater a medium that can contribute to the national dialogue on current events?

These concerns fall squarely within Tectonic Theater Project’s mission. Every project we undertake as a company has two objectives: (1) to examine the subject matter at hand, and (2) to explore theatrical language and form. In an age when film and television are constantly redefining and refining their tools and devices, the theater has too often remained entrenched in the nineteenth-century traditions of realism and naturalism. In this sense, our interest was to continue to have a dialogue on both how the theater speaks and how it is created. Thus, I was very interested in this model: A theater company travels somewhere, talks to people, and returns with what it saw and heard to create a play.

At the time I also happened to run across a Brecht essay I had not read in a long time, “The Street Scene.” In it Brecht uses as a model the following situation: “an eyewitness demonstrating to a collection of people how a traffic accident took place.” He goes on to build a theory about his “epic theatre” based on this model. The essay gave me an idea about how to deal with this project, in terms of both its creation and its aesthetic vocabulary.

So in November 1998, four weeks after the murder of Matthew Shepard, nine members of Tectonic Theater Project and I traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, to collect interviews that might become material for a play. Little did we know that we would devote two years of our lives to this project. We returned to Laramie many times over the course of the next year and a half and conducted more than two hundred interviews.

This play opened in Denver at the Denver Center Theater. Then it moved to New York City, to the Union Square Theatre. And in November 2000 we took the play to Laramie.

The experience of working on The Laramie Project has been one of great sadness, great beauty, and, perhaps most important, great revelations—about our nation, about our ideas, about ourselves.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Laramie Project was written through a unique collaboration by Tectonic Theater Project. During the year-and-a-half-long development of the play, members of the company and I traveled to Laramie six times to conduct interviews with the people of the town. We transcribed and edited the interviews, then conducted several workshops in which the members of the company presented material and acted as dramaturgs in the creation of the play.

As the volume of material grew with each trip to Laramie, a small writers’ group from within the company began to work closely with me to further organize and edit the material, conduct additional research in Laramie, and collaborate on the writing of the play. This group was led by Leigh Fondakowski as head writer, with Stephen Belber and Greg Pierotti as associate writers.

As we got closer to the play’s first production in Denver, the actors, including Stephen Belber and Greg Pierotti, turned their focus to performance while Leigh Fondakowski continued to work with me on drafts of the play, as did Stephen Wangh, who by then had joined us as an associate writer and “bench coach.”

The Laramie Project received its world premiere at The Ricketson Theatre by the Denver Center Theatre Company (Donovan Marley, Artistic Director) in association with Tectonic Theater Project (Moisés Kaufman, Artistic Director; Jeffrey LaHoste, Managing Director) in Denver, Colorado, on February 19, 2000. It was directed by Moisés Kaufman; the set design was by Robert Brill; the lighting design was by Betsy Adams; the original music was by Peter Golub; the sound design was by Craig Breitenbach; the video and slides were by Martha Swetzoff; the costume design was by Moe Schell; the assistant director was Leigh Fondakowski; and the project advisor was Stephen Wangh. The cast was as follows:

Stephen Belber: Himself, Doc O’Connor, Matt Galloway, Anonymous Friend of Aaron McKinney, Bill McKinney, Andrew Gomez, Fred Phelps, Mormon Spiritual Advisor, Conrad Miller, Narrator, Ensemble.

Amanda Gronich: Herself, Eileen Engen (Act One), Marge Murray, Baptist Minister, Trish Steger, Shadow, Newsperson, Narrator, Ensemble.

Mercedes Herrero: Reggie Fluty, Rebecca Hilliker, Waitress, Newsperson, Narrator, Ensemble.

John McAdams: Moisés Kaufman, Philip Dubois (Act One), Stephen Mead Johnson, Murdock Cooper, Jon Peacock, Dennis Shepard, Harry Woods, Narrator, Ensemble.

Andy Paris: Himself, Jedadiah Schultz, Doug Laws, Dr. Cantway, Matt Mickelson, Russell Henderson, Aaron McKinney, Philip Dubois (Act Two), Kerry Drake, Narrator, Ensemble.

Greg Pierotti: Himself, Sgt. Hing, Phil LaBrie, Father Roger Schmit, Rulon Stacey, Detective Sgt. Rob DeBree, Jonas Slonaker, Narrator, Ensemble.

Barbara Pitts: Herself, Catherine Connolly, April Silva, Zubaida Ula, Sherry Aenonson, Lucy Thompson, Eileen Engen (Act Two), Narrator, Ensemble.

Kelli Simpkins: Leigh Fondakowski, Zackie Salmon, Alison Sears, Romaine Patterson, Aaron Kreifels, Tiffany Edwards, Narrator, Ensemble.

The Laramie Project subsequently opened Off-Broadway at The Union Square Theatre (Alan J. Schuster and Margaret Cotter, Managing Directors) in New York City on May 18, 2000. It was produced by Roy Gabay and Tectonic Theater Project in association with Gayle Francis and the Araca Group; Associate Producers Mara Isaacs and Hart Sharp Entertainment. It was directed by Moisés Kaufman; the set design was by Robert Brill; the lighting design was by Betsy Adams; the original music was by Peter Golub; the video and slides were by Martha Swetzoff; the costume design was by Moe Schell; the assistant director was Leigh Fondakowski; and the project advisor was Stephen Wangh. The cast was as follows:

Stephen Belber: Himself, Doc O’Connor, Matt Galloway, Anonymous Friend of Aaron McKinney, Bill McKinney, Andrew Gomez, Fred Phelps, Mormon Spiritual Advisor, Conrad Miller, Narrator, Ensemble.

Amanda Gronich: Herself, Eileen Engen (Act One), Marge Murray, Baptist Minister, Trish Steger, Shadow, Newsperson, Narrator, Ensemble.

Mercedes Herrero: Reggie Fluty, Rebecca Hilliker, Waitress, Newsperson, Narrator, Ensemble.

John McAdams: Moisés Kaufman, Philip Dubois (Act One), Stephen Mead Johnson, Murdock Cooper, Jon Peacock, Dennis Shepard, Harry Woods, Narrator, Ensemble.

Andy Paris: Himself, Jedadiah Schultz, Doug Laws, Dr. Cantway, Matt Mickelson, Russell Henderson, Aaron McKinney, Philip Dubois (Act Two), Kerry Drake, Narrator, Ensemble.

Greg Pierotti: Himself, Sgt. Hing, Phil LaBrie, Father Roger Schmit, Rulon Stacey, Detective Sgt. Rob DeBree, Jonas Slonaker, Narrator, Ensemble.

Barbara Pitts: Herself, Catherine Connolly, April Silva, Zubaida Ula, Sherry Aenonson, Lucy Thompson, Eileen Engen (Act Two), Narrator, Ensemble.

Kelli Simpkins: Leigh Fondakowski, Zackie Salmon, Alison Sears, Romaine Patterson, Aaron Kreifels, Tiffany Edwards, Narrator, Ensemble.

CHARACTERS

Sherry Aanenson—Russell Henderson’s landlord, in her forties.

Anonymous—Friend of Aaron McKinney, in his twenties; works for the railroad.

Bailiff

Baptist minister—Originally from Texas, in his fifties.

Baptist minister’s wife—In her late forties.

Stephen Belber—Member of Tectonic Theater Project.

Dr. Cantway—Emergency room doctor at Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, in his fifties.

Catherine Connolly—Out lesbian professor at the university, in her forties.

Murdock Cooper—Rancher, in his fifties; resident of Centennial, a nearby town.

Rob DeBree—Detective sergeant for the Albany County Sheriff’s Department, in his forties; chief investigator of Matthew’s murder.

Kerry Drake—Reporter with the Casper Star-Tribune, in his forties.

Philip Dubois—President of the University of Wyoming, in his forties.

Tiffany Edwards—Local reporter, in her twenties.

E-mail writer

Gil and Eileen Engen—Ranchers; he is in his sixties; she is in her fifties.

Reggie Fluty—The policewoman who responded to the 911 call and discovered Matthew at the fence, in her late thirties.

Leigh Fondakowski—Member of Tectonic Theater Project.

Matt Galloway—Bartender at the Fireside, in his twenties; student at the University of Wyoming.

Governor Jim Geringer—Republican governor of Wyoming, forty-five years old.

Andrew Gomez—Latino from Laramie, in his twenties.

Amanda Gronich—Member of Tectonic Theater Project.

Russell Henderson—One of the perpetrators, twenty-one years old.

Rebecca Hilliker—Head of the theater department at the University of Wyoming, in her forties; midwestern accent.

Sergeant Hing—Detective at the Laramie Police Department, in his forties.

Jen—A friend of Aaron McKinney, in her early twenties.

Sherry Johnson—Administrative assistant at the university, in her forties.

Stephen Mead Johnson—Unitarian minister, in his fifties.

Two Judges

Jurors and Foreperson

Moisés Kaufman—Member of Tectonic Theater Project.

Aaron Kreifels—University student, nineteen years old.

Phil Labrie—Friend of Matthew Shepard, in his late twenties; eastern European accent.

Doug Laws—Stake Ecclesiastical leader for the Mormon Church in Laramie, in his fifties.

Jeffrey Lockwood—Laramie resident, in his forties.

Aaron McKinney—One of the perpetrators, twenty-one years old.

Bill McKinney—Father of Aaron McKinney, in his forties; truck driver.

Alison Mears—Volunteer for a social service agency in town, in her fifties; very good friend of Marge Murray.

Media / newspaper people

Matt Mickelson—Owner of the Fireside, in his thirties.

Conrad Miller—Car mechanic, in his thirties.

Mormon home teacher to Russell Henderson—In his sixties.

Marge Murray—Reggie Fluty’s mother, in his seventies; has emphysema but continues to smoke.

Doc O’Connor—Limousine driver and local entrepreneur, in his fifties.

Andy Paris—Member of Tectonic Theater Project.

Romaine Patterson—Lesbian, twenty-one years old.

Jon Peacock—Matthew Shepard’s academic adviser, in his thirties; political science professor.

Reverend Fred Phelps—Minister from Kansas, in his sixties.

Greg Pierotti—Member of Tectonic Theater Project.

Barbara Pitts—Member of Tectonic Theater Project.

Kristin Price—Girlfriend of Aaron McKinney, in her twenties; has a son with Aaron; Tennessee accent.

Priest at the funeral

Cal Rerucha—Prosecuting attorney, in his fifties.

Zackie Salmon—Administrator at the University of Wyoming, in her forties; lesbian; Texas accent.

Father Roger Schmit—Catholic priest, in his forties; very outspoken.

Jedadiah Schultz—University student, nineteen years old.

Shadow—DJ at the Fireside; African American man, in his thirties.

Shannon—A friend of Aaron McKinney, in his early twenties.

Dennis Shepard—Father of Matthew Shepard, in his forties; Wyoming native.

April Silva—Bisexual university student, nineteen years old.

Jonas Slonaker—Gay man, in his forties.

Rulon Stacey—CEO Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, in his forties; a Mormon.

Trish Steger—Romaine Patterson’s sister, in her forties; owner of a shop in town.

Lucy Thompson—Grandmother of Russell Henderson, in her sixties; working-class woman who provided a popular daycare service for the town.

Zubaida Ula—Muslim woman, in her twenties.

Waitress (Debbie Reynolds)

Harry Woods—Gay Laramie resident, fifty-two years old.

NOTE: When a character is not named (for example, friend of Aaron McKinney, “Baptist minister”), it is at the person’s request.

PLACE:

Laramie, Wyoming, U.S.A.

TIME:

1998–99

ABOUT THE STAGING

The set is a performance space. There are a few tables and chairs. Costumes and props are always visible. The basic costumes are the ones worn by the company of actors. Costumes to portray the people of Laramie should be simple: a shirt, a pair of glasses, a hat. The desire is to suggest, not re-create. Along the same lines, this should be an actor-driven event. Costume changes, set changes, and anything else that happens on the stage should be done by the company of actors.

ABOUT THE TEXT

When writing this play, we used a technique I developed called moment work. It is a method to create and analyze theater from a structuralist (or tectonic) perspective. For that reason, there are no scenes in this play, only moments. A moment does not mean a change of locale or an entrance or exit of actors or characters. It is simply a unit of theatrical time that is then juxtaposed with other units to convey meaning.

ACT I

MOMENT: A DEFINITION

NARRATOR: On November 14, 1998, the members of Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, and conducted interviews with the people of the town. During the next year, we would return to Laramie several times and conduct over two hundred interviews. The play you are about to see is edited from those interviews, as well as from journal entries by members of the company and other found texts. Company member Greg Pierotti:

GREG PIEROTTI: My first interview was with Detective Sergeant Hing of the Laramie Police Department. At the start of the interview he was sitting behind his desk, sitting something like this (he transforms into Sergeant Hing):

I was born and raised here.

My family is, uh, third generation.

My grandparents moved here in the early nineteen hundreds.

We’ve had basically three, well, my daughter makes it fourth generation.

Quite a while.… It’s a good place to live. Good people—lots of space.

Now, all the towns in southern Wyoming are laid out and spaced because of the railroad came through.

It was how far they could go before having to refuel and rewater.

And, uh, Laramie was a major stopping point.

That’s why the towns are spaced so far apart.

We’re one of the largest states in the country, and the least populated.

REBECCA HILLIKER: There’s so much space between people and towns here, so much time for reflection.

NARRATOR: Rebecca Hilliker, head of the theater department at the University of Wyoming:

REBECCA HILLIKER: You have an opportunity to be happy in your life here. I found that people here were nicer than in the Midwest, where I used to teach, because they were happy. They were glad the sun was shining. And it shines a lot here.

SERGEANT HING: What you have is, you have your old-time traditional-type ranchers, they’ve been here forever—Laramie’s been the hub of where they come for their supplies and stuff like that.

EILEEN ENGEN: Stewardship is one thing all our ancestors taught us.

NARRATOR: Eileen Engen, rancher:

EILEEN ENGEN: If you don’t take care of the land, then you ruin it and you lose your living. So you first of all have to take care of your land and do everything you can to improve it.

DOC O’CONNOR: I love it here.

NARRATOR: Doc O’Connor, limousine driver:

DOC O’CONNOR: You couldn’t put me back in that mess out there back east. Best thing about it is the climate. The cold, the wind. They say the Wyoming wind’ll drive a man insane. But you know what? It don’t bother me. Well, some of the times it bothers me. But most of the time it don’t.

SERGEANT HING: And then you got, uh, the university population.

PHILIP DUBOIS: I moved here after living in a couple of big cities.

NARRATOR: Philip Dubois, president of the University of Wyoming:

PHILIP DUBOIS: I loved it there. But you’d have to be out of your mind to let your kids out after dark. And here, in the summertime, my kids play out at night till eleven and I don’t think twice about it.

SERGEANT HING: And then you have the people who live in Laramie, basically.

ZACKIE SALMON: I moved here from rural Texas.

NARRATOR: Zackie Salmon, Laramie resident:

ZACKIE SALMON: Now, in Laramie, if you don’t know a person, you will definitely know someone they know. So it can only be one degree removed at most. And for me—I love it! I mean, I love to go to the grocery store ’cause I get to visit with four or five or six people every time I go. And I don’t really mind people knowing my business—’cause what’s my business? I mean, my business is basically good.

DOC O’CONNOR: I like the trains, too. They don’t bother me. Well, some of the times they bother me, but most times they don’t. Even though one goes by every thirteen minutes out where I live.…

NARRATOR: Doc actually lives up in Bossler. But everybody in Laramie knows him. He’s also not really a doctor.

DOC O’CONNOR: They used to carry cattle … them trains. Now all they carry is diapers and cars.

APRIL SILVA: I grew up in Cody, Wyoming.

NARRATOR: April Silva, university student:

APRIL SILVA: Laramie is better than where I grew up. I’ll give it that.

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