set was designed in a way that was very versatile and yet, still convey a serious message. By versatile, I am implying that the open-stage with two ramps crossing each other in the background was plain and simple but served a purpose of several scenes – such as a bar, church, and even a funeral. A set prop that were a key pieces in the play were the wooden benches, these made it possible for the actors to switch scenes. Some examples on the usage of the benches were when they stacked two benches one on top of another and turned it into a bar, they turned the bench in a vertical position and created a podiums to express different religions, or setting the benches in a close and aligned design to create a church. Other props that influenced the scenes were snow, umbrellas, then using the umbrellas as angel wings, and of course lighting. Instead of building entire sets, or making the audience use their imagination with no props included in the play, the set designers and directors created visuals that were ordinary objects and interacted the audience to use their imagination and “build” the appropriate set for the scene in their minds. I believe by keeping a low budget, the designers of The Laramie Project accomplished a bigger impact on the audience with a simple-low-budget set rather than an expensive-big-fancy set.Props and sound effects were not the only major influences for this greatly constructed play, but also the performance of the song, “Amazing Grace” sung by the entire cast was emotionally moving. The cast first begins to sing in the cemetery scene at Matthew’s funeral at a medium volume, as a “protester” starts preaching anti-homosexuality – the volume of the singing then lowers and gradually turns into humming which allows the audience to hear the angry man. The song, “Amazing Grace” by itself arouses a lot of emotions out of people – the directo...
