The Williston Northampton School will present the spring production, The Laramie Project, on April 25-27 and May 2-4 at the Williston Theatre.

In conjunction with The Laramie Project, cast members are leading workshops in classes and dorms that address many of the themes raised in the play. The workshop series kicked off Friday morning in the Middle School.

Four cast members—seniors Gabe Byrd, Brian Hendery, Zack Maldonado, and Rachel Wender—engaged the Middle School student body in a workshop about community. The actors started with a familiar theater game, Zip, and then asked students to listen to each others’ stories about a time they experienced a strong sense of community. The task was to do more than simply listen, but to “phenomenologically listen.”

The actors learned about this term in a meeting earlier this spring when History and Global Studies teacher Diane Williams discussed techniques for leading social change workshops. This idea resonated with the actors, who have taken the concept onto the stage and into their workshop plans.

The concept demands full engagement from the listener, who sits silently while his or her listening partners relate true stories. The hope is that, by engaging in this process, you truly hear another person’s experience and refrain from putting your own ideas onto their story. Ultimately, this kind of listening builds empathy and understanding. In essence, we truly become allies to one another.

It may seem like a daunting task, but the Middle School students embraced it wholeheartedly. The final activity was an application of what they’d learned about community—in the style of another favorite theater game, Hot Dog Wham. Seventh grader Risa Tapanes said of the workshops, “[they] brought me with classmates that I normally don’t converse with.” Mike Janocha, another seventh grader, wrote, “I thought it was cool to get to know some of the people who are working on the play that know more than we do so we could talk about the REAL life problem that happened to [Matthew Shepard].” Before students left the workshops, students were encouraged to think of tangible ways to bring what they learned from the workshop into their every day lives.

This morning’s workshop was one of nearly 20 that will be conducted on six different themes relating to the play over the course of the next three weeks. Workshop topics include class divide and inequity, homophobia, religion, judgment, and the role of art in making change. Our hope is that through these workshops we can begin to see a world where existing hatred is eroded.

Many actors who have performed in The Laramie Project over the last decade have commented on the necessity of becoming activists as well as actors in the process of putting on the play. Countless productions all over the world have been met with hateful protests in which theater companies were forced to defend their right to perform The Laramie Project. How lucky we are to become activists in a completely different way at Williston—we are being welcomed into classroom communities and dorms across campus as ambassadors for the discussion on how to make our world a better place.

The Laramie Project opens this Thursday April 25.  Visit www.williston.com/theaterproductions for ticket information and a list of special events surrounding the production.

For more information about Matthew Shepard and the Erase Hate campaign, please visit matthewshepard.org