The Laramie project is based on a true story in Laramie, Wyoming where a group of artists and reporters from New York travel to Laramie to document the death of Matthew Shepard. The play portrays a word for word reenactment of interviews given by those who were involved in the incident, and investigations conducted to seek the truth about his death.

In addition to the preparation of the play by students, staff members outside of the theater department contribute their skills in playing the roles of different characters.  Travis Armknecht, high school English, journalism and speech teacher, and Andrew Goodin, Makerspace manager, are two of the newly featured staff members. Theater teachers Brandon Riley, Shaun Sheley, and Keith Williams are also featured. 

“The  energy that Mr. Goodin, Mr. Armknecht, and Mr. Keith, and most of the time myself, when we come in, the energy you can just feel. It’s something interesting and it’s a positive energy because they are taking time out of their schedules to do something extra surely for the enjoyment of it, and wanting to help out to tell a story. It’s an automatic, positive energy,” said Riley.

The play runs from Thursday, December 1st through Saturday December 3rd at 7pm in the Black Box on the sixth floor.

“I think we need to continue to have these conversations, whether it’s about sexuality, racism, classism, feminism, all the inequality conversations…Our hearts have to be willing to have these conversations,” Riley continued.