Mackenzie Thomas
Staff Writer
Marshall University, a college in Huntington, West Virginia, is set to put on their performance of “The Laramie Project”’ this week. The director and assistant professor of Acting and Movement, T. Fulton Burns, worked as an assistant director with Moises Kaufman, the original creator of “The Laramie Project”, following Mathew Shepard’s death in 1996.
During November of 1998, just a month after Shepard passed away (according to AnimatingDemocracy.org), Kaufman began working in Laramie. He and his team worked to interview over 200 residents of Laramie in order to better understand the circumstances surrounding the life and death of Matthew Shepard.
“It’s been exciting to connect the dots about what I worked on over twenty years ago. It’s been over twenty years since I’ve wanted to work on this show,” said Burns.
Kaufman and his team used the interviews they conducted to tell a story about Laramie, Wyoming in the months that followed Shepard’s murder. This became known as “The Laramie Project”, a play that would still remain on stage twenty years after its creation.
“For me, the play is about healing, but at the heart of it, it is about compassion. The compassion we have for others and the compassion we have for ourselves, along with the compassion we lack towards others,” said Burns.
Burns explained Act 1 of “The Laramie Project” is an account of perspectives surrounding the LGBT+ community during the months following Shepard’s murder. Act 2 follows what was happening while Shepard was being cared for at the hospital. Though Act 2 touches on Shepard’s death, Act 3 goes into depth about what happened as an immediate result of his death.
“When I share the story behind “The Laramie Project”, I share the insight I had upon this. I wasn’t even part of the selection party to choose this play, but I begged for the opportunity to work on this and connect the ideas I worked on with Moises twenty plus years ago,” said Burns.
Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten and left for dead on Oct. 6, 1998 and died six days later at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado.
At the time, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder shook the nation. It was at a heightened time of discriminatory politics toward LGBTQ+ people.
Two years before Shepard’s murder in 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act came into effect. The act denied same-sex couples the benefits and recognition of their marriage that heterosexual couples were granted. The act also mandated that states did not have to recognize same-sex marriage as legitamate.
The shock of Shepard’s murder in 1998 brought politicians, musicians, famous figures and members of an entire country together. During a time of heavy prejudice towards the LGBTQ+ community, Shepard became a symbol for the gay rights movement throughout America.
“The Laramie Project is significant and important because it allows us to see how far we have come as a country with acceptance, but it also gives us a chance to look at how far we still have to go,”said Burns.
Burns said he hopes the Marshall University’s performance of “The Laramie Project,” alongside future performances throughout the country, will help show the audiences the importance of compassion.
