Bordentown Regional High School drama students hope ‘The Laramie Project’ will open minds.
By: William Wichert
High school junior Steven Melton stared down at the script, his hands clutching the folds of the book, and slowly uttered words of pain from a father trying to come to terms with the murder of his gay son.
His voice wavered with sadness and rose with anger as Steven and his fellow cast members recreated a scene from "The Laramie Project," a play about the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo., that premieres tonight, Jan. 13, at Bordentown Regional High School.
"Matt’s beating, hospitalization and funeral focused worldwide attention on hate," said Steven, speaking as Dennis Shepard, during an evening rehearsal last month. "Good is coming out of it. People have said enough is enough."
Bordentown students now hope to bring this dialogue about a brutal hate crime that shocked a nation to their own community by making the controversial subject of homosexuality centerstage for all their classmates and neighbors to discuss.
"I hope it makes people think," said BRHS senior Kristin Talbot during a group interview in the middle of last month’s rehearsal. "We’re not going to change anybody’s views like that, but if they go home thinking about it, then we’ve done something good."
Written by members of the New York City-based Tectonic Theater Project, who visited the town after the murder, "The Laramie Project" is mostly a series of monologues by actors portraying different Laramie residents, who present the events leading up to Matthew Shepard’s death and community’s reaction to it. This production is being directed by English teacher Anthony Rizzo.
From the religious leaders and police officers to the bartenders and business owners, the residents spend the play trying to make sense out of what happened on Oct. 6, 1998, when Mr. Shepard’s body was found beaten and tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie.
In their own portrayal of over 66 characters in the play, the students said the eyewitness accounts within the dialogue give the show an even greater emotional impact and increase the demands on the actors.
"You’re doing them justice. This is how they are," said junior Amanda Siciliano. "I want to show the truth. I don’t want to show what’s not real."
Making it real required some students to draw connections between their characters’ relationships with Matthew Shepard and their own personal relationships in real life.
Kristin said she was able to better understand the character of Romaine Patterson, a close friend of Matthew Shepard, because her best friend also died recently. Steven said his mother’s death last year helped him to relate to Dennis Shepard.
"I can really get into the character. I know what he’s feeling. I can just add the emotion," Steven said.
Senior Michael Brayton said he felt the need to give every one of his lines the proper treatment, because he and the other cast members would be providing a real snapshot of American society.
"It’s not like a fake play. This is like a real picture of your society today," Michael said. "This is what’s going on."
The play’s picture of Laramie, however, is not entirely different from the one that the students already have of the Bordentown area.
"I see it (Laramie) just as Bordentown. I know that sounds really weird. They are so many miles away, but they are so small," Kristin said. "What the people have to say about it is, they make fun of it, cause it’s so small, but they love their town. And I just think that’s how Bordentown really is too."
Although Kristin said nothing like Mr. Shepard’s murder has ever happened in Bordentown, she thinks a similar incident could happen, because there is still a taboo surrounding homosexual lifestyles.
"We live in a more liberal area, where it’s more accepted, but it’s still not fully accepted. It’s sad it’s like that," she said. "A lot of people are stuck in old ways and their parents are stuck in old ways, and their parents are teaching them to stay in those ways."
Michael said one can hear the intolerance in how high school students talk about gays.
"I heard, ‘yeah, I don’t like gay people.’ They’re not like, ‘I hate them. I want to kill them.’ (Other students will say) ‘If they don’t touch me, they don’t bother me," Michael said.
"Even today, in Bordentown, as an insult, we say, ‘oh, that’s gay’ or ‘you’re gay’ or stuff like that," he said. "That’s the reason why people don’t come out."
This apparent animosity toward gay students in high school was echoed by members of Bordentown Friends of Lesbians and Gays (B-FLAG), a local support group for homosexual residents.
In a Dec. 23 e-mail message, B-FLAG issued a statement that gay students are most likely to be harassed and insulted about their sexuality, leading some to contemplate suicide.
"Violence against gay teens is an epidemic that most teachers and administrators ignore as ‘kid stuff,’" the e-mail stated. "The comment, ‘That’s so gay’ as an insult flows freely from kids’ mouths on a daily basis, and (is) mostly ignored or even tolerated because it’s not the ‘F’ word.
"If the high school play can being some attention to this problem and bring discussion to teens, that would be an accomplishment worth praising," according to the e-mail.
But the anonymity of the B-FLAG members may show that discrimination toward gays does not end in high school.
When asked to reveal the author of the first e-mail, B-FLAG representatives wrote in a Dec. 31 e-mail: "All members are anonymous and we have always spoken as a group. Society is not accepting enough to be open … It can and will effect some people at work."
This production of "The Laramie Project," however, may help open up this closed society, said Donna Glover and Cindy Gola, co-advisers of Helping All Needed During School (HANDS), a high school group dedicated to promoting open-mindedness and tolerance.
Over the last week, more than 20 students from HANDS have been promoting the show around school by handing out buttons that show a globe being grasped by black and white hands beside an inscription that reads, "Laramie Project, Embracing Diversity."
"Our role will be to continue to bring awareness to this issue," said Ms. Glover, the school nurse, who also made announcements every morning over the public address system about diversity, homophobia and the show.
Ms. Glover and Ms. Gola said the play may lead to positive changes at the school, because of the impact theater had on the Bordentown students who founded HANDS in 1999 after seeing a show on racial and social discrimination.
"When they viewed the performance of (Michael) Fowlin, they were moved to start a group," said Ms. Glover. "Who knows what will come out of it ("The Laramie Project")."
Since 1999, HANDS has sponsored many fund-raising events and participated in several activities that promote diversity at the high school.
"We’re not going to touch everybody, but even if we touch a few, we’ve made progress," noted Ms. Gola, the secretary to the assistant principal.
But several of the cast members said they hope that Bordentown residents will not refuse to see the play simply because it discusses homosexuality.
"I don’t really see the community as being anti-gay, but I would really hope that the community wouldn’t just judge this play (and say) ‘it deals with gay people. I’m not going to see it,’" said sophomore Camille DiLeo, the show’s stage manager. "If they choose not to see it, ’cause it deals with homosexuality, they’d be missing out on so much."
"The Laramie Project" will be performed at 8 p.m. on Jan. 13 through Jan. 15, and at 2 p.m. on Jan. 15. Tickets for the evening performances cost $7 and $5 for the Saturday matinee. For more information, call (609) 298-0025, ext. 1322.

