For Matthew

Hauppauge High School Fine and Performing Arts Department’s extraordinary talents recently exploded on the stage with an extraordinary production of The Laramie Project. The play recounts the horror that took place in October 1998 in the middle of the prairie outside of Laramie, Wyoming. Twenty-one-year-old University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was tied to a fence post, severely beaten, robbed, tortured and left alone to die. His body – battered, bloody, barely clinging to life – was discovered 18 hours later. He was rushed to the hospital and put on life support. He died five days later. The reason for this brutal crime? Matthew Shepard was gay.

Led by Founder Moisés Kaufman, members of New York’s Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie in the aftermath of Shephard’s murder. The group interviewed more than 200 subjects – some directly related to the case and others regular town citizens – over the course of the subsequent year and a half. The Laramie Project was born out of these interviews as well as journal entries and found texts. The play follows, and in some cases re-enacts, “moments” in the chronology of Shepard's visit to a local bar, his kidnap and beating, the discovery of him tied to a fence, the hospital vigil, his death and funeral, and the trial of his killers Arthur Henderson and Aaron McKinney.

There are more than 60 characters portrayed in The Laramie Project – Tectonic Theatre Project members, townspeople, clergy, hospital staff, law enforcement, the media, members of the judiciary, the murderers and many others. In perhaps the most dramatic moment of the play, Matthew’s father, Dennis Shephard, speaks to the court to offer his opinion on the death penalty. (Despite the fact that Wyoming does have the death penalty, Henderson and McKinney each received two consecutive life sentences for their crimes against Shephard.)

The Laramie Project is a massive undertaking for a theatre department with its complex subject matter and numerous character “moments.” According to Hauppauge Theatre Teacher Ruthie Pincus, “Hauppauge’s theatre students have eloquently told the tragic story of Matthew Shepard and masterfully handled such important issues as hate and discrimination and with understanding, grace and beauty. I could not be prouder of them all!”

Photos by Frank Bayer.