High School Actors Tackle 'Laramie Project'

SAN RAMON, CALIFORNIA - Lauded as a tool for teaching tolerance -- and protested by some anti-gay activists -- "The Laramie Project," a play based on the infamous killing of a gay college student in Wyoming, is coming to San Ramon's California High School this week.
Students in Cal High's play production class for advanced theater students will perform the play.
"I really hope people see the pain and suffering one action can cause," said Jessica Senden, vice president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance who is also part of the performance.
The play stems from the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a college student who was killed in Laramie, Wyo. by two men because he was gay. He was driven from a bar to a remote area where he was tied to a wooden rail fence, robbed and beaten into a coma. He later died.
Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project in New York created the work, through interviews with town residents and drawing upon their own experiences. It is intended to show life in Laramie after the killing.
The idea for Cal High students to do the play was Laura Woods', the school's first-year drama teacher.
"I really feel it's important for kids to accept other people," said Woods, who believes theater has the power to bring social change. This year, she had students pick and study other works they thought had that such impact.
A special daytime performance Tuesday for Cal High students will include a talk by the mother of slain Newark transgender teen Gwen Araujo.
Araujo was killed in 2002 after two men she had sex with learned she was born male. Last month the two--convicted of second degree murder--were sentenced to the maximum 15 years to life. Another man had pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, while a fourth pleaded no contest to the same charge.
While the play is three hours long, the class cut their presentation down to about one, in large measure by cutting language some would find objectionable. The meaning still comes through, she said.
The class asks that audience members be 14 or older, but that's up to parents' discretion, Woods said.
She and Gay-Straight Alliance President Spencer Dixon said they have not heard of protests of this production, though they've happened elsewhere. When students at Araujo's Newark Memorial High School performed the play in 2002, eight relatives of the Rev. Fred Phelps, minister of the Westbro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas protested.
Dixon, a Cal High senior, said the play is not just about tolerance of gays but for all people. He pointed to one part, in which a Muslim woman talks about how she is treated while at the supermarket. Dixon, who will be running the lobby during the performances, said he's happy to see school actors go beyond the usual comedy performances and other light fare.
"I'm amazed that we were allowed to do this," he said.
from The San Jose Mercury News