By the time you read this, the Des Moines Young Artists’ Theatre’s (DMYAT) production of The Laramie Project at Stoner Theater will have come and gone. While this remains a review of the company’s latest production, consider this, additionally, an assessment of this youth-centered central Iowa program.
DMYAT is a Des Moines nonprofit dedicated to offering theatrically inclined young locals a stage and means to perform, often with scripts that push them creatively.
The Laramie Project is a challenging piece for even seasoned performers. Each actor is expected to alternate between half a dozen unique characters existing within the town of Laramie, Wyoming. On top of that, the lines and characters are derived from real-life interviews assembled here in such a way that lines from one character rarely play off of lines from another, meaning the actors are effectively memorizing and performing dozens of monologues.
The topic then adds further challenge.
The Laramie Project depicts the recounting of the events leading up to the brutalization and killing of Matthew Shepard, a queer University of Wyoming student, in 1998.
Evidence of this challenge is pronounced in the show’s first half with moments in which actors seem more focused on remembering lines than character performance. But it is a credit to the cast that I’d expect the same or, honestly, less from some fully adult community theater casts. And each of the eight performers here had at least one standout moment or characteristic.
Ben Kim performed with the company for the first time and did a lot to lock into and distinguish his characters as the show went on. Stella Hogan performed a monologue so powerfully in the second half, I thought I might be watching the show-stopping final moments of the show. And Maddy Sill offered perhaps the most solid performance throughout with each of her characters feeling distinct, honest and considered.
I am loathe to call a performance “brave,” especially a well-established production at a well-known venue. To clarify, artists and performers are more frequently brave on an individual basis in the expression of their vulnerability; I tend to scoff at the notion that a piece well-trodden enough to have an HBO movie adaptation can be holistically “brave.”
That said, this is a performance that comes at a time where federal funding is cut to arts organizations that don’t toe an invisible line. (Des Moines Performing Arts, which operates the Stoner Theater where this was staged, was one of a number of Iowa organizations wounded by federal funding cuts). It’s a moment in which schools and libraries are being restricted in regard to advocating for the health and safety of LGBTQ+ youths. We live in a place where even performances depicting characters dressed or presenting themselves as something other than their gender assigned at birth are being framed as corrupting by legislators.
I think, at this time and in this place, DMYAT’s production of The Laramie Project deserves to be called “brave” more than any production I’ve yet seen.
Isaac Hamlet has, at various points, been an arts & entertainment reporter and editor based in Iowa City and Des Moines. He also writes fantasy books under the pseudonym R.E. Bellesmith.
