Student theater group to perform “The Laramie Project” during Transgender Awareness Week

Ohio University’s student-run theater company, the Lost Flamingo Theatre Company, will perform “The Laramie Project,” a play about the reaction to the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming whose murder was denounced a hate crime and brought awareness to the lack of hate crime laws in the U.S. The performance will he held Nov. 19 and 20 at ARTS/West in Athens.

The production will be performed at the end of Transgender Awareness Week, bringing attention to the discrimination and homophobia that is still experienced by members of the LGBT community.

“Today, prejudice, racism and homophobia continue to occur, signaling that we as a society must not get comfortable,” Grace Kriger, director of “The Laramie Project,” said. “I want people to walk away from the show with new perspectives and thoughts about their own hearts and realize that progress only happens as long as you fight to keep it.” 

“The Laramie Project,” set in and around Laramie, Wyoming, is written by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project, an eight-member New York-based theater company. To write the play, the Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie and recorded interviews with the town’s citizens over a two-year period. The show uses actual words from the transcripts to create a portrait of the town forced to confront itself. 

“As a team we wanted to bring this story to the Athens community to share this powerful message of acceptance, living your truth, and to honor the legacy of Matthew Shepard and all those before and after him,” Assistant Director Andrew Connolly said.

Kriger said the play’s existence has helped to make the world a better place. Shepard’s parents founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which helped pioneer the country’s first federal hate crime legislation known as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. Kriger added that Wyoming still hasn’t enacted hate crime legislation, which makes the play more relevant. 

“Ultimately, I want people to remember that Matthew was a real person. He was a 21-year-old college student who had flaws but dreamed just as much as anyone else,” Kriger said.

The play’s eight-person cast includes Rey De Spain as Stephen Belber, Allie Smith as Amanda Gronich, Destery Gunther as Greg Pierottie, Zoe-Hanna Rawlins as Mercedes Herrero, Sergio Morales-Blazquez as John McAdams, Michael Terranova as Andy Paris, Nicole Adams as Kelli Simpkins, and Alexis Cairney as Barbara Pitts. Eleanor Rauschenberg stage manages the production, with help from Max Levitsky, the assistant stage manager. Lighting design for the production is done by Bob Walters, with sound design by Brian Schapp. 

Tickets for “The Laramie Project” are $5 and can be purchased at the door with cash.

Kriger said the show is not recommended for anyone under the age of 13 due to its mature nature. Trigger warnings include hate speech, violence, hate crime, homophobia, racism and themes of mortality.

LGBT Center Director Micah McCarey said sharing stories about LGBTQ+ history helps show how important it is to neutralize hate and promote allyship.

“On a personal note, it was hearing Matthew’s mother, Judy Shephard, speak in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium in 2004 that inspired me to formally come out to family and to our Ohio University community,” he said. “She asked that in honor of his memory and the memory of too many other queer lives lost to violence, those of us who feel they can be safely open and honest about our LGBTQ+ identities do so as a means of helping ignorant people shift from hatred to understanding and compassion.”

McCarey added that while it is a coincidence that the Lost Flamingo Theatre Company’s production of “The Laramie Project” falls during Trans Awareness Week, both the play and the week are about raising awareness.

“It’s not lost on me that Mathew Sheppard’s story became a catalyst for change in part because he was a white, cisgender, gay male, a set of identity traits significantly more privileged than the experiences of transgender women of color who are murdered at higher rates than even transgender women who are white,” McCarey explained. “We read their names and their stories to raise awareness about transphobia, trans erasure, racism, and sexism. Then, when we put those stories in conversations with a story like ‘The Laramie Project,’ we come to understand the importance of intersectionality.”

Carmen Szukaitis, a student-staff member at the LGBT Center and President of Ohio University’s T.R.A.N.S. student organization (Team of Really Amazing Non-cisgender Students), said the play is important to view because it will help the community learn about discriminatory violence.

“Transgender Awareness Week is all about raising awareness about trans identities and the problems that the community faces,” Szukaitis said. “The Laramie Project is doing this.”

Other events taking place during Transgender Awareness week include:

• Painting the graffiti wall on Nov. 14 at 3:30 p.m. The wall will be painted with names of trans people who have passed due to anti-trans violence. The goal is to spread awareness, remember their names, and honor their lives.
• Hanging trans-identity flags on the fifth floor of Baker University Center. This goal is to show the visibility of trans identities. 
• Trans Awareness Media Display from Nov. 10–20 on the fourth floor of Alden Library. This display aims to show the visibility of transmedia and spread awareness of transmedia that is available to students.
• Clothing Exchange on Nov. 18 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Baker 230. The goal of this event is to allow students to come and exchange their old clothes for more affirming clothes to their identity.
• Vigil for Trans Day of Remembrance on Nov. 19 from 5 to 6 p.m. on the Baker third floor atrium. During this event a list of names will be read to honor trans individuals who have lost their lives due to anti-trans violence.