St. Michael's produces the Laramie Project
Drama club challenges homophobia and hate crimes

Mary Cate Connors | fact checker
mconnors@smcvt.edu

Peter Harrigan (right) works with the cast of the Laramie Project. Alex McIntire, photo

On Oct. 7, 1998 University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was robbed, tortured and killed for being homosexual.

Recently, the St. Michael’s College drama club auditioned and cast parts for the Laramie Project, a story about the town of Laramie, Wyo. and how the Matthew Shepard story impacted people in that community.

The show will be held in the McCarthy Arts Center on Wednesday, Oct. 31 through Saturday, Nov. 3.

Choosing the show

Fine Arts professor Peter Harrigan is directing the show this semester. Harrigan heard about the play in 2001 when it was written and has always wanted to produce it, he says.

“I have a real interest in using theater to tell different stories that provoke discussion,” Harrigan says. “This is not just a play we’re doing.”

The show is centered on a hate crime stemming from homophobia. However, it also touches on racism and close-mindedness, he says.

“Yes, Matthew Shepard was gay, but we also want to reach out to other kinds of discrimination,” Harrigan says. “[Hate] is not just the concern of the gay community.”

Students are playing roles that are meant to stretch their limits and challenge them as actors. The cast was given a questionnaire to help them understand their characters' movtivations. They were then instructed to use the script and be creative to answer questions about the education, religious affiliation and their connection to the Matthew Shepard events, Harrigan says.

“It’s important to research the character and even if the students don’t agree with their actions,” he says. "It matters why they might have done certain things and what circumstances led up to them.”

All of the actors must research more than one character because the cast isn’t very large and the students are all playing double roles.

“We have 16 students in the cast,” Harrigan says. “It’s a little bigger than the original show that was done with eight.”

Harrigan is a St. Michael’s alumus who started teaching at the college in 1991 and has directed approximately 50 shows here. He’s directed several shows dealing with social justice issues in the past. Harrigan’s covered topics like the death penalty, the Holocaust and the 1989 Romanian Revolution, he says.

“We choose the show as a department based on the challenges that we think St. Michael’s students and the actors need,” Harrigan says. “But St. Michael’s mission and the Edmundite tradition is so involved with social justice; it’s nice to be able to collaborate with that.”

Technically speaking

Senior Michelle Merola is the stage manager for the Laramie Project. While some form of stage managing is required for Merola's theater major, she also has a passion for it. She is responsible for helping the director, block writing, maintaining charts and calling the lighting and sound cues for the show, she says.

The Laramie Project has almost no written stage directions; it focuses entirely on the storytelling. In one instance, however, the script calls for rain on stage. John Devlin, the technical director has rigged a pipe system and plans to install a drain on stage in order for it to actually rain, Harrigan says.

“There’s also some multimedia involved because it’s an important opportunity to see some of the actual historical footages,” he says. “It’s another reminder that this is not fiction."

Merola is not just excited for the technical aspects of the show; she is also devoted to the message.

“This is a chance for a social forum that St. Michael’s hasn’t done,” she says. “I’ve been trying to find a way to get some of these messages across since I’ve been here.”

Merola attends all rehearsals and is excited for the impact that the show may have on the St. Michael’s community. She hopes that it might have the same effect as Invisible Children did last year, Merola says.

“Every day after rehearsal I want to go home and cry for an hour," Merola says. "That’s how powerful the story is."

Merola is also the head of Common Ground, the St. Michael’s gay-straight alliance. Once the Laramie Project was announced, Common Ground’s social chair Kyle McElheney made some calls and arranged for Judy Shepard, Matthew Shepard’s mother, to speak on campus. Shepard will be holding a lecture, and question and answer session on Oct. 25.

“Within 24-hours, we had her booked and coming,” Merola says. “It’s really intense that someone so close to the play is coming to St. Mike’s right before we go up.”

From the actors

Sophomore Josh Bardier just transferred from Providence College. The Laramie Project will be his first performance with the drama club at St. Michael’s.

“I can’t even begin to describe how excited I am that a Catholic school is doing Laramie as a main-stage production, not just a student-directed show,” Bardier says.

Bardier is ready to undertake the challenges that the Laramie Project offers as far as acting and social justice. He hopes that the show serves as a conversation-starter amongst students, he says.

Shawn Campbell practices lines at a recent rehersal for the Laramie Project. Alex McIntire, photo

“As a gay student and actor, you wish you could have moments in your life where you could speak out against things like homophobia and intolerance,” Bardier says. “To be given this opportunity makes me incredibly grateful to be a part of the drama club.”

Bardier followed the story of Matthew Shepard when it broke nine years ago. Now the cast has a chance to lead the audience in telling that same story and hopefully helping to stop intolerance, he says.

“After the first read-through, I saw all of the different walks of life that were coming together to be in this show,” Bardier says. “Everyone has their own story. Now we’re telling Matthew’s story.”

The week of the show, there will be several events including a panel of community members holding a forum about hate crimes.

Bardier plays both a Catholic priest and an extremely liberal gay man in the show. In the role of the priest, one of the character’s lines stresses the importance of the playwright's conveying the story correctly.

“I think that is the feeling of the entire cast, that we say it correctly,” Bardier says, referring to the importance of preserving Matthew Shepard's life. “We have this opportunity to say something so wonderful; we need to make sure we say it correctly.”