“I think right now our most important teachers must be Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney [the men convicted of murdering Matthew Shepard]. They have to be our teachers. How did they learn? What did we as a society do to teach them?”
—FATHER ROGER SCHMIT, CATHOLIC PRIEST IN LARAMIE, WYOMING, QUOTED IN THE LARAMIE PROJECT
—FATHER ROGER SCHMIT, CATHOLIC PRIEST IN LARAMIE, WYOMING, QUOTED IN THE LARAMIE PROJECT
Research for the The Laramie Project, Moisés Kaufman's play, began one month after a horrific crime occurred in the city of Laramie, Wyoming. Members of Kaufman's theatrical group, Tectonic Theater Project, traveled from New York City to Laramie in order to gather in-person interviews from the townspeople. The idea was to capture the emotions, reflections, and reactions of the people who were most closely related to the crime—the brutal beating and subsequent death of a young college student. Was this a hate crime? Or was it a random, senseless assault and robbery?
Kaufman's objective was to explore the issues of homosexuality, religion, class, economics, education, and non-traditional lifestyles through the residents' responses to the incident. How did this crime define the culture, not just of this Western town, but of the entire United States?
Kaufman's objective was to explore the issues of homosexuality, religion, class, economics, education, and non-traditional lifestyles through the residents' responses to the incident. How did this crime define the culture, not just of this Western town, but of the entire United States?
Source: http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-the-laramie-project/#gsc.tab=0