photo by: University of Kansas Department of Theatre & Dance

The cast of KU's University Theatre during a final run-through of their upcoming production, "The Laramie Project." Arlowe Sue Clementine, the director, said putting together the production was an important reminder of queer history and a way to hold up that history.

As KU’s University Theatre prepares for its final show of the season with a documentary play depicting a tragic attack on a queer college student, the director said the production is an important reminder of queer and trans history — both in tragedy and resilience.

University Theatre will close its 2025-26 season with “The Laramie Project,” which incorporates two years of interviews with Laramie, Wyoming, residents conducted by the Tectonic Theater Project’s members following the killing of Matthew Shepard in 1998.

Arlowe Sue Clementine, the director for the production and a doctoral student and scholar/artist in the KU Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies, told the Journal-World the play is made up of “moments instead of acts” to capture the reactions in the town that “highlight the ways a community deals with violence, homophobia and the trauma” of the attack.

Clementine, who uses they/them pronouns, identifies as trans, and much of their academic research has focused on the work of queer liberation activists and history in the later half of the 20th century. Clementine said because the story is situated in their research area, it lent itself to a “really deep look” at the play and its surrounding history with the cast and production crew.

Clementine said much of the cast of the play are queer and trans, and Clementine said the production had a dramaturgy class that focused a lot on the research about the historical context in Laramie at the time. Clementine said working on that project, which included the team creating a website compiling research about Laramie and Lawrence, was important to them as a historian and archivist, and they said it was important to look into queer history outside of just Shepard’s story considering the tragic details.

“It can be really hard and heavy to only take in queer and trans history through a lens of violence perpetuated against our bodies, so it is really important to me we did work to reclaim queer resistance and resilience and a broader understanding of our history,” Clementine said.

photo by: University of Kansas Department of Theatre & Dance

Arlowe Sue Clementine, the director of University Theatre’s performance of “The Laramie Project” and a doctoral student and scholar/artist in the KU Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies, is seen here.

In the production, there are some hard moments. Some characters use anti-LGBTQ+ slurs in the play, and the production will have two 10-minute intermissions and a retreat space for patrons having difficulty with the subject matter. Clementine said some cast members had to work to portray characters that are “hard to sit with” and some might not even believe their identity is valid, but they said they are proud of how the cast worked to “embody these characters and embody the time.”

This production touching on a key story of queer history also comes when “it is a really hard time right now to be queer and trans in the heartland,” Clementine said. The Kansas legislature passed Senate Bill 244 earlier this year, which, among other things, invalidated documents issued to transgender people previously, and Clementine said the queer community is being “inundated with attacks.” Those challenges can be really hard to endure, but working on the project brought the ensemble closer together while also learning about their history.

Clementine said it is “lovely” for queer and trans people to live in Lawrence’s “blue dot,” but it can be easy to forget other “queer and trans siblings” might not have the same sort of community spaces or feeling of protection in other places, meaning they could live in the same kind of environment that led to Shepard’s killing in Laramie. Clementine said this show will not “hide from grief or moments of joy;” it will allow people to “sit with (the queer community’s) lived experience” — both then and now — in a way they hope serves as a moment of catharsis and a reminder of the grief and joy of queer history.

“It’s important we hold our stories,” Clementine said. “I think this show is a great way for folks to do that.”

photo by: University of Kansas Department of Theatre & Dance

The cast of KU’s University Theatre during a final run-through of their upcoming production, “The Laramie Project.” The show, which runs from April 24 to 26, is a documentary play based on years of interview with people from Laramie, Wyo. conducted after the 1998 killing of Matthew Shepard.