The Laramie Project Essay

As we know the audience is the heart of theatre. So as we see we, as the audience can relate to such thing as what happens in all movies or performances. Some films or plays try to make audience laugh, others try to make them cry but the producers of The Laramie Project brings a lesson to us.

The Laramie Project is a DocuDrama in which the film is a fictional drama based on true events. The Laramie Project was created by Moises Kaufman. The characters are distillations of about 200 people whom the theater company interviewed over a one-year period in Laramie, Wyoming. This movie centers on the small town of Laramie’s reaction to a murder of a 22 year old young gay guy named Matthew Shepherd. Matthew Shepard's death was based on the so called “ hate crimes “ legislation.

He was a sedulous and smart young man. On the day of his death, he had met two young men in a local straight bar and got into their truck because apparently they had told him they were going to take him home. It seemed as if the two young men were going to kidnap him, but they acted as if they were gay just to trick him out of the bar. One of the men got very indignant when Matthew Shepard supposedly grabbed his thigh. He then suffered from what he later called a “ gay panic “ attack. He then started punching Matthew as he was sitting next to him. He then pulled over and dragged Matthew out of the truck and tied his body to a fence and started beating him up. He then later on died that cold October