In 2002, the Napa Valley Conservatory Theater (NVCT) production of The Laramie Project, directed by NVCT Artistic Director and Napa Valley College professor, Jennifer King, became a theatrical phenomenon, breaking box office records and creating a call to community.
A decade later, NVCT revisits the subject, opening the 2012/2013 season with The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later. This epilogue focuses on the long-term effects of the murder of Matthew Shepard on the Wyoming town in which he lived—and on the nation as a whole.
The Laramie Project has been a topic of study for several prominent scholars, and here are some suggested articles and texts that you might find interesting.
The Enduring Legacy of Laramie Two Decades Later. By, John Moore, American Theatre. (2020)
“Say It Right, Say It Correct”: Documenting the American West in The Laramie Project By, Tony R. Magagna. Western American Literature, Volume 51, Number 2, Summer 2016, pp. 199-229
On October 6, 1998, two young men in Laramie, Wyoming, tricked University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard into thinking they would give him a ride home from the bar. Eighteen hours later, a cyclist found the gay student tied to a fence, beaten, burned, and comatose with a fractured skull. He initially mistook Shepard's limp frame for a scarecrow. ACLU.org
Napa Valley College hosted one of two nation-wide events featuring Judy Shepard, the mother of the gay man who was brutally murdered in 1998, at a special reading of “The Laramie Project” in an observance of the tenth anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death. Directed by Jennifer King with Napa Valley College President Chris McCarthy featured as a reader.
