The Laramie Project 10 years Later

Be sure to see "The Laramie Project: Ten Years later" at South Puget Sound Community College.

What is the "Laramie Project?"

A month after the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, the members of Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie and conducted interviews with the people of the town. From these interviews they wrote the play The Laramie Project, which has become one of the most performed plays in America in the last decade. The company later made the play into a film for HBO. The play and the movie combined have been seen by more than 50 million people around the world.

Why did they want to return in 2008?

The murder of Matthew Shepard had such seismic impact on this small town in America, that the company wanted to try to observe what, if any, were the long lasting effects of such a crime. How does a town look like 10 years after an episode of this magnitude? Have the attitudes changed? The mythologies? Has change occurred that's concrete and lasting?

For those reasons, the group returned to re-interview past participants, conduct new interviews with Laramie residents and most dramatically, interview Judy Shepard and Aaron McKinney (Matthew Shepard's murderer).

SPSCC Production

The South Puget Sound Community College is doing a student production under the direction of Don Welch. The show runs August 5-7 and August 12-14 at 8:00pm and August 8 and 15 at 2:00pm at the Kenneth J Minnaert Center for the Arts at SPSCC campus. Doors open at 7:00 pm, and PFLAG-Olympia will be tabling at the event before each performance except the Aug. 8 matinee when we'll be having our annual picnic in Priest Point Park.