Laramie Project Review

Question: How did the Laramie Project make you feel?
I felt many different feelings while reading the Laramie Project: sad, hurt, out of control, mad, and useless at some times. The story of Matthew Shepard was one of the most controversial stories I've ever read. The feeling of sadness, and possibly anger, I think is a feeling most people have while reading this story. I felt a few things though that maybe some have not felt. For example; useless. I wanted to jump through the story and be apart of the funeral, the vigils and all of the memorials they had for Matthew. I have a person in my family that is homosexual, and I couldn't even fathom this ever happenng to them.

A specific part of the play that made me feel hurt was the scene of the interview with Matt Galloway, the bartender at Fireside. He stated somehting like "I felt like i could have stopped it all." This made me realize that Aaron Mckinney and Russell Henderson did more than just cause a death for Matthew. The two boys that murdered Matthew left behind a trail of people that not only are hurt because of the death, but they feel that they could have prevented it in some way. Now they'll feel forever like, "I could've saved Matthew's life...but I didn't."

I started reading The Laramie Project and I thought it was going to be a good story. One with good parts and bad parts, parts worth remembering and those worth forgetting. It did much more than that. While reading I found that The Tectonic Theatre group does a really good job of giving every possible angle of the story. They interviewed everyone I could think of to interview for this story. I feel like this will be one of those stories I remember indefinitely. For anyone about to read this, prepare to be shocked. It does so much more than make you think, it makes you remember.