With a production starting this weekend, members of ISU Theatre will recognize the fourth anniversary of the death of Wyoming resident Matthew Shepard, who died on Oct. 8, 1998.

“The Laramie Project” spotlights the town of Laramie, Wyo., after Shepard, a 21-year-old gay college student, was the victim of a hate crime.

The play is based on official transcripts, found texts and a collection of more than 200 interviews of Laramie residents conducted by Moises Kaufman and his New York-based Tectonic Theater Project.

The play begins as members of the theater group arrive in Laramie to research material for a play they are writing about the Shepard murder and continues as the members recreate for each other the people they have met.

Robin Stone, director of the ISU Theatre production of “The Laramie Project,” says the play was chosen because the people of Ames can relate to the people, the town and the message.

“It deals with issues and characters that are will be very familiar to people who live in Ames and people who are associated with ISU,” says Stone, assistant professor of music. “Laramie and Ames are roughly the same size with the University of Wyoming and Iowa State University being the main focus of the towns.”

Auditions for the play were held on the first day of classes, and the members of the production have been practicing ever since.

Ten actors are playing upwards of 70 characters in the play. The actors recreate the Tectonic Theater Project’s trip to Laramie and portray the people they met and the messages they sent.

Barbara Pitts, one of the co-authors and original actors in the play, visited production members last week and offered advice to the actors who have to jump from character to character swiftly. Pitts also spoke to the students about her personal experiences in Laramie.

“We had some discussion and talks about why they chose some of the characters and some of the speeches and some of the scenes when they were putting it together,” Stone says. “She also talked about some of the real people that are being portrayed in the drama just to give [the students] a fuller picture of the town of Laramie and the process of creating this play.”

Laura Bestler-Wilcox, an actress in the play and program coordinator for the Dean of Students office, says having Pitts come to visit was very intense for the students involved in the production.

“She actually got to meet these people in person and she’s actually [a character] in the play, and we got to meet her in person. She is actually in the play,” she reiterates. “That’s intense when you think about it.”

Bestler-Wilcox, who will represent six different characters in the play, says “The Laramie Project” is tough to act in because it is based on a real-life event.

“This play is a challenge because we’re actually playing real people so you want to do them justice as well as do justice to what the play is about,” she says. “What happened to Matthew Shepard touched me personally, as I would hope any human would feel some compassion toward what happened to Matthew.”

Stone says Pitts’ visit to Iowa State didn’t put any extra pressure on the students’ performance but instead gave them more support and confidence.

“She really liked what she saw,” Stone says. “It just helped everyone’s confidence knowing they were [acting] it in the way that it was meant to be done.”

Stone says he doesn’t know how he expects the audience to feel after seeing the play, but he hopes “The Laramie Project” will demonstrate how good human beings can be, as well as how awful human beings can be.

“I’m hoping the audience will see a lot that they can identify with and a lot they can find familiar so they can evaluate themselves in relation to themselves and their community so things like this don’t have to happen again,” Stone says.

“One of the main messages of the play is that it can happen anywhere. It’s something that happened in Laramie, but it can happen anywhere.”