The play already serves as a low-maintenance and all-the-while effective theatre piece. We are actively working to make mounting an LPP event as accessible and cost-free as possible for programs that may lack funding. It’s my belief that every piece of the theatre catalogue has an advocacy-initiative inside of it, and that students are the ultimate vessels of these. Being a Production-Companion Project, we also encourage students to construct their own PCPs for their school’s season.
By bringing communities together and educating audiences, it becomes clear that arts spaces are essential to cultivating compassion and acceptance. The LPP Family advocates for arts education by providing the opportunity for theatre programs to put up a unique event that challenges their students to act as artist-advocates. We began by honoring the Pulse victims, and since every name has since been honored in towns across miles and the seas, we have expanded to a larger list of people to memorialize, which makes for partnerships with the organizations Matthew Shepard Foundation and The Dru Project.
High school Thespian Troupes and Gay-Straight Alliances, colleges, pro and amateur theatres, and community and religious groups have shared the story of Laramie with their hometowns, creating a loving tribute while making a statement that hate crimes can never be normalized, ignored, or tolerated. To date, we connect with 66 LPP events in 23 states and three other countries.
Production managers, directors, teachers, and passionate student leaders embraced our initiative and expanded our reach. I watched the LPP go from a state project, to a regional project, to a national project, and, thanks to the power of social media, an international project. I scoured Facebook event pages for Laramies in the rehearsal process so I could ask them to add the LPP element of dedicating their production to someone we had lost to the horrific hate crime that was, at the time, the worst mass-shooting on American soil. In the early days of the project: In between (and sometimes during) biology classes, amidst college research, and throughout intermission conversations, along with the support of upperclassmen and my drama teachers, I reached out to hundreds of high schools, theatres, and advocacy groups and encouraged them to set up events and spaces to bring Laramie to their communities. Since then, our The Laramie Project Project (or LPP) has grown into a theatre advocacy and education initiative that unites and catalyzes worldwide productions and readings of the play to honor victims of current hate crimes. Her: “Well, I want to connect 49 Laramies to honor the 49 Pulse victims.” Kirstin Lynch-Walsh, at a Thespian troupe meeting, I expressed my want to create some kind of project in tandem with Laramie so I could maximize its impact on our school and greater community. In the middle of a conversation with my drama teacher and director of the play, Ms. As a theatre artist and an out LGBTQ+ teen, I know my performance of Laramie would be the ultimate synthesis of my earnest passion for equality. I was immediately struck by the incredible script and powerful story. While this wasn’t the first hate crime ever, it was one of the first anti-gay acts of violence that caught worldwide attention and started a wave of fighting for hate crime legislation. This play uses found texts and interviews to chronicle the response of the 1998 hate crime against Matthew Shepard, a young advocate and gay University of Wyoming student. In the summer of 2016, it was announced that our Junior Class Production would be The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theater Project.
It’s thanks to a theatre teacher and the compassion of other theatre teachers from around the world that I’ve discovered my own life purpose, and that I am working to help others find their own.
And since theatre and the arts take the concept of “hands-on” education to the next level, I recognize a specific, ongoing segment of my life that required me to:ġ) become a breathing-encyclopedia of a docu-play,Ģ) build an international community from a Google account,ģ) and get really good at writing email pitches. My internal inclinations toward choosing generosity and standing up for others is due to the multiple perspectives that theatre challenges me to consider, along with the historical accounts and cultural experiences that are celebrated within the arts. Interpersonal communication and public speaking skills will never go without use, but something often unidentified that arts ed has helped me and every other student to develop is a strong set of values. It’s not only the “special skills” section of my résumé that is augmented by my theatre experience. Thanks to my arts education, I can say that, as an 18-year-old, I feel entirely equipped to address all that life can throw at meーwith excitement and curiosity.