KU Theatre stages The Laramie Project, drawing parallels to Lawrence today

KU University Theatre opens The Laramie Project at the William Inge Memorial Theatre in Murphy Hall with a sold-out opening night, but the production is aiming well beyond a season finale. The April 24 to 26 run arrives as KU’s director sees parallels to potential issues in Lawrence today, making the show a pointed look at what safety, belonging and campus climate mean on the KU campus and in the city around it.

The play centers on Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student who was attacked on Oct. 7, 1998, then died on Oct. 12, 1998, in Fort Collins, Colorado. Written by Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, The Laramie Project is a documentary drama built from more than 200 interviews gathered in Laramie, Wyoming, over six trips and about a year and a half after Shepard’s killing. That structure gives the production its force: it records not only the crime, but the words of a community trying to make sense of hate, grief and responsibility.

That history still carries legal and political weight. Shepard’s murder helped inspire the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, enacted in 2009 and signed by President Barack Obama on Oct. 28, 2009. The U.S. Department of Justice says the measure became Division E of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, tying a local tragedy in Wyoming to federal civil rights law that continues to shape how hate crimes are prosecuted.

The play’s reach has been unusually broad for a stage work. The Matthew Shepard Foundation describes it as one of the most frequently performed plays in America, and reports say it has been staged in more than 20 countries and translated into more than 13 languages. KU’s cast and creative team also reflect a wide Kansas footprint, with participants from Edgerton, Manhattan, Olathe, Oskaloosa, Overland Park, Shawnee, Topeka and Wichita. In Lawrence, that mix makes the production feel less like an abstract memorial than a local reckoning. The question it presses now is straightforward: what kind of campus and community does Lawrence want to be for LGBTQ students, neighbors and families who are deciding whether they feel safe and seen here.