The Laramie Project

RADA November 2019

by Moisés Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theater Project

Directed by Kristine Landon Smith

Designed by Adam Wiltshire

The Laramie Project is a piece of documentary theatre created by Tectonic Theatre Company in the aftermath of Matthew Shepard’s murder in the town of Laramie, Wyoming, 1998. Made up of testimonies drawn from inhabitants of the town, the work examines the impact of Matthew’s tragic death not only on Laramie and its residents but also on America as a whole.

The power of the play comes from the individuals who make up the community surrounding Matthew Shephard. The work does not sentimentalise or judge, but rather gives real people – their experiences, feelings and opinions a voice. 

In bringing Tectonic’s work to RADA in this production, I felt it was crucial that we were as detailed as possible in our approach, as we were bringing the words of real people in front of audiences. To do the people interviewed justice and to respect the bravery of their testimony, we sought to capture actuality. Without interpretation or judgement.

The technique of headphone verbatim, pioneered by Anna Deveare-Smith and Mark Wing Davey in 90’s America, was the tool we used to pursue this. Actors listen with a forensic attention to the subtlety and complexity of the source interview as they rehearse, seeking to capture every nuance, every idiosyncratic detail of delivery and so becoming conduits for the stories they are sharing.

Throughout rehearsals actors found the source voices that they were portraying and tried to capture as closely as they could the specificity of what they were hearing. Once secure in their sensory memory of the people they had listened to they left the headphones behind yet still endeavouring to stay as close to the original source as they possibly could. This was a fascinating development in the use of the headphone verbatim technique in terms of how it can be used in actor training and character development. I worked closely with Joe Windley, Head of Voice on this aspect of the work and could not have done this without him. Katya Benjamin from the movement department helped actors physically inhabit the actor's source material and Phil Raymond and Jane Streeton from the singing department were key collaborators shaping the delivery of the choral singing work . Poppy Clifford from Birkbeck University assisted me and Adam Wiltshire produced a poetic design which captured the intimate and the epic. It was a pleasure to work in such a collaborative way in the Conservatoire space.