Although I’m usually able to shake off ignorant and intentionally provocative remarks, a friend’s comment recently pushed me over the edge.

“I don’t like him. He’s a ...,” said the friend, using a slur for someone who is gay. These seven words slapped me in the face. Why should this affect me so much? I’m not gay, but I’m sick of hearing prejudiced comments routinely at school.

South Eugene High School Theater is producing “The Laramie Project” beginning this Thursday. A striking theatrical collage, the play pieces together interviews and character studies of Laramie, Wyo., residents to tell the story of the aftermath of the Matthew Shepard murder.

In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay University of Wyoming student, was brutally killed. He was the victim of a homophobic hate crime.

The play is challenging for high school theater, both because of its technical demands (more than 60 characters played by an ensemble of 11 actors), and because of its intense subject matter.

“The Laramie Project” does not shy away from heavy themes. It meets small-town perspectives on AIDS, homosexuality and class distinctions head on. The play does not offer one right answer. Characters assert different opinions, leaving the audience many questions to consider.

At my school — a supposed bastion of hippies and liberals — diversity, tolerance and acceptance are drilled into our heads to the point of becoming cliché. Something about this message is evidently not working. Why, despite the inundation of diversity education in our schools, do anti-gay remarks still find a home?

I’ve noticed at school that while kids no longer get away with racist comments, they still make homophobic or sexist slurs without being challenged by their classmates or friends. If a student makes an anti-gay comment — nothing blatantly violent or threatening, but a vague remark, such as “That’s so gay” (something heard daily in the halls) — his or her friends are much less likely to speak up.

Their silence allows homophobic comments to become normal or acceptable. Many don’t pause to consider the connotations of this insult — it makes “gay” synonymous with “weird” or “bad.”

This is where “The Laramie Project” comes in. Performance-based learning is a powerful, even gut-wrenching tool to fight homophobia.

On the first day of rehearsal, we sat and talked about the characters. We delved into the dynamics of a small town, and asked ourselves how society and the media condition us to behave and think in certain ways.

We debated the similarities and differences between Laramie, Wyo., and Eugene, Ore.

Our second day of rehearsal, we arrived not knowing what to expect. We had heard that the plan was to do improvisation. Improvisation? This is a dramatic play, not a comedy club. In fact, improvisation served as a tool to expose our prejudices. We examined the importance of the play, the subject matter, the characters’ perspectives, and shared our personal connections with the script. After talking for an hour and a half, no one left with dry eyes.

Not until the third week did we actually start rehearsing the play. A big part of the battle was understanding the script, the intricacies of the topics presented, and the heart within even the most hateful characters.

The six characters I’m playing are all real people. None of the dialogue is fictional — every word comes from one of the more than 200 interviews conducted in Laramie by the Tectonic Theatre Project (which wrote the play).

The beauty of “The Laramie Project” is in its humanity and in the humor that people turn to even in the worst of times. It’s in the poignant portrayal of men and women on opposite ends of religious and political spectrums, the subtlety of the text, and its ability to capture the essence of a town without feeling invasive.

The participation of Matthew Shepard’s mother, Judy Shepard, is testament to the play’s accuracy and importance. With the help of the South Eugene High administration and community advocacy groups and sponsors, our school drama department was able to bring her to Eugene.

She will speak to the school and then to the broader community on Feb. 13 at South Eugene High School. Proceeds go to the Matthew Shephard Foundation to promote diversity education.

My hope for the “The Laramie Project” is that its compelling message will quell the senseless comments that I hear in the halls at school.

That will be a start.

Leah Reis-Dennis is a junior at South Eugene High

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