I just had an impromptu meeting with Rebecca Hilliker and had to get to my journal before I lost the amazing insights that she has about his play. I think she understands the very issues that I am exploring in my thesis and articulates what is really at stake when The Laramie Project is produced.

She said that there is something eerily threatening that this play can be produced in these large numbers and receive little to no objection about the issues it's raising. This is not a subversive/radical/queer theatre piece and Moises didn't intend for it to be that. Rebecca wanted to push him in that direction, but Moises worked to take baby steps by making a play that recognizes gay people as members of all communities and that pushes people's understanding of issues of tolerance and diversity. This play does that and does it well, and these issues are then disseminated throughout our culture.

Rebecca says that there are voices of negativity that are not included but that Moises thought about what he wanted this piece to be.

Rebecca seems to be exhausted with all the attention. She says she gets at least three emails or calls a week demanding her time in regards to The Laramie Project. She's hoping the fury will end soon, but that the message continues and the play enters into historical and theatrical canons.

She feels now like she's insufficient and unoriginal. She feels repetitive and tired of answering to the national press.

She said it was very difficult to see herself on stage. It helped that Moises directed all the women that she's seen play her. But she believes that the words speak for themselves, but that perhaps the layers and the subtext might get lost in the subsequent productions.

I began to think about how the play rides on the media wave of the attention given to Matt's death, but I don't think the play necessarily perpetuates the media's gross infatuation with this young, white, rich college student. There are still hate crimes that go unnoticed, like a Native American man murdered in Farmington recently that Rebecca mentioned to me and the media isn't interested. But Rebecca feels Tectonic took the time to avoid those trappings that the media fell into, coming to a greater understanding of these events and the people of Laramie.

When Angels in America came to the university there was much vocal protest to the play. When The Laramie Project came, barely anything. Its not threatening enough, its too nice,

Rebecca says one good thing to come out of this attention has been more money for the university program on diversity. The state legislature was forced to give one million to the university in order to match the one million given by a donor.

She also thinks the religious atmosphere has changed for the better. Churches have started programs addressing these issues. The Baptist Minister is no longer in the town.

She said a great deal more. It hasn't been too cold here, high 50s actually, but I'm outside and the Wyoming wind is intensifying.

NEXT ENTRY...