Project Laramie

February 6, 2010

Moving a set into a taped off area on a stage, acting out one scene of a play, and getting the whole set off the stage may seem like nothing, but for drama students at Novi High School, this all has to be done in forty-five minutes or less.

Now you might be thinking, “Why would someone want to do that kind of work?” or “How in the world is that possible?” but in reality, it’s just another season of competition play for the drama and theatre students at Novi High School.

This year the theme for the competition is drama, and the play that our students decided to portray was The Laramie Project written by Moisés Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theatre Project.

The Laramie Project is a play about a University of Wyoming Student, Matthew Shepard, who was beaten to death by two strangers for being homosexual. Throughout the play Matthew was never a character, and the entire story is told through the eyes and ears of people in the community in which Matthew lived.

Now to some this may seem like a boring old play of people sitting around talking about this poor kid who was murdered, but when you actually see it, it is exactly the opposite. The way that these drama students took on this challenging play was incredible.

Watching this personally on the last night of the show, before the cast and crew head off to another level of the competition this weekend, gave me a new way of looking at people. Seeing this show made me realize that there really are people in this world that judge people based on their sexuality rather than their personality.

And not to sound too cliché, but don’t judge a book by its cover. You can’t say that you don’t like someone just because you know they are gay, or because they are from another country, or even because they have a different color hair from you doesn’t give you the right to hurt them either physically or emotionally.

Whether you saw this play or not, please don’t judge people by how they look, how they act, or how they live their life because if you do, you could be missing out on knowing someone that could have changed your life.

This probably doesn’t seem like something that an ordinary play would leaving you thinking about, but the way that these theatre students acted it out on the stage really left an impact on the audience.

If you missed out on seeing this amazing show, at least take this advice from me: Whether the person sitting next you in class is older or younger, taller or shorter, boy or girl, gay or straight, don’t judge them before you get to know them, because they could end up being one of your best friends during your high school career.