Christopher Gaertner gets ready for 'The Laramie Project'

2014 Apr 21

The Mercyhurst Theatre Program will concludes its second season with The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and the Members of the Tectonic Theater Project April 24-27.

Christopher Gaertner is one of 12 student actors who comprise the cast of The Laramie Project, which is a complex portrait of a community's response to the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard --a 21-year-old gay man who was kidnapped, severely beaten and left to die when he was tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. In a series of poignant reflections, the citizens react to the hate crime and surrounding media storm with anger, bewilderment and sorrow.

Brett D. Johnson, Ph.D., who previously helmed Eurydice and Urinetown: The Musical, directs the show, which is presented in cooperation with the Mercyhurst Institute for Arts & Culture.

To create the play, the eight-member New York-based Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie in the wake of Shepard's murder, conducting more than 200 interviews with the people of the town.

"The idea behind The Laramie Project was to gather a document that would record how the people of Laramie felt about sexuality, class, identity, education, violence, and what we're teaching our children," said Johnson. "The play does not preach from one side or the other, but attempts to create a place where the citizenry can speak to each other and to the world from their hearts and their minds."

Johnson chose Laramie to conclude the theatre program's second season because of the challenges it presents in terms of both content and form. Twelve actors portray more than 70 characters, including members of the Tectonic Theater Project, Laramie residents and the reporters who descended on the town in the days following Shepard's murder. Different characters are suggested through simple costume pieces as well as the actors' physical and vocal transformation.