Maybe there is something about the date October 7?! On this date, two years ago, Hamas attacked young people enjoying the Nova music concert and nearby kibbutzes.
The current play at the New Theatre, THE LARAMIE PROJECT, written by Moises Kauffman and the members of the Tectonic Theatre Project, deals with the hate crime murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay guy living in Laramie, Wyoming, that took place on the 7th October 1998. To add a further layer, the New’s current production opened with a preview on the 7th October.
The play has been described in a San Francisco Times review of the time as this millennium’s OUR TOWN, a classic, much loved play written by Thornton Wilder in. 1939. It is very similar in style with an on stage narrator and an array of very earthy, country town characters. The plays’ subject matters, however, are very different, with Wilder’s play having much lighter subject matter.
The gruesome death of Shepard completely rocked the people of the sleepy, peaceful town of Laramie, and went on to become a huge national story. Americans started talking about issues such as attitudes to homosexuality which had previously been ‘hidden under the carpet’.
Theatre director Moises Kaufman of the experimental theatre group, the Tectonic Theatre Company, was tracking the story when he thought that it would be good a project to make a verbatim work of theatre out of. To talk to the citizens of Laramie and see what they thought and felt about what happened. After two years of interviewing and editing, the play THE LARAMIE PROJECT was born.
I have seen this play a number of times over the years and it is one of the most earthy and moving plays I have seen. Even some earthy humour was incorporated in to it .
This New Theatre production was performed with a lot of conviction by a talented cast of ten who portrayed more than sixty characters, with each actor playing many roles. The cast were Stephen Allnutt, Michelle Robin Anderson, Gina Cohen, Ruba El-Kaddoumi, Rayyan Khan, Rich Knighton, Samantha Lambert, John Michael Narres, Riya T and Charlie White.
Mark G Nagle’s direction was in tune with the play’s fast paced nature, darting constantly between the narrator, the theatremakers and those who they interviewed.
David Marshall-Martin’s set design was not only powerful but superbly inspired. The ever-present, shifting scaffold-like structure served at once as the fence, the framework of every farm, and the ascending form of a church.
This multi-functioning ‘every-place’ transformed locations midstream with ease, its parameters extending an open invitation to the Tectonic Theater Project team as they shaped their treatment of this evocative, change-making story.
Storyboards framed the space, filled with archival materials—echoing the theatre-making journey itself. These notice boards seemed to invite continual additions, weaving an active dialogue with the participating audience. Verbatim theatre is an art: it crafts a truth-telling, sobering, stolen moments in time. Every design choice here prepared us for that narrative.
The simple wooden dining chairs, the high stools of a country pub, the wall hooks that held costumes—all worked with an effortless clarity. Costume design, too, was handled with precision: each actor’s multiple roles distinguished not by flourish, but through garment, gait, and gesture.
Tash McBride’s evocative lighting design and Alexander Sussman’s atmospheric soundscape were also impressive.
Verbatim theatre, when it is done well, as it is,with this play, is a very powerful
A New Theatre production, Moises K Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theatre Project’s, THE LARAMIE PROJECT is playing the New Theatre, 542 King Street, Newtown until November 1, 2025.
Production photography by Chris Lundie
