Matthew Shepard, Ten Years Later

Photos from Australian production of The Laramie Project

Across the United States. Over 100 theaters. Honoring 10 years gone by.

Sometimes I take a breath and try to forget that I live a comfortably gay life with little to no discrimination. My bosses and colleagues are gay. Here I am penning a column on a gay blog. I can’t shake a stick or swing a cat or verb any other noun without hitting a gay bar. And instead I take a look at the general rights of gay people everywhere.

And today I’m thinking back ten years. It has just been announced that, to honor the 10 year anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death, over 100 theaters across the US will perform Laramie Project: Ten Years Later on October 12th.

First, this is a beautiful idea. It couldn’t be more timely. As wedding wars take place across our country – with groups gathering on either side in the fight for equality, it’s good to take a second to realize how far we’ve come.

When it first hit the stage, Laramie Project received a lot of acclaim and attack. Directed by Moises Kaufman and co-created with his Tectonic Theater Project, the docudrama presented the story of the death of Shepard through interviews and first hand accounts from the citizens of Laramie, Wyoming.

Second – it is an interesting idea. The benefit of this being a docudrama, versus a play, means we can go back to the people originally interviewed, and see what’s happening now.

This new production will feature “re-interviews” with some of the same residents in the first production. I am intrigued to hear their opinions on how far we have or have not come.

And speaking of, how far HAVE we come in 10 years? Well, for one, it took that long to get the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act to pass. Of course that doesn’t stop people from saying it’s useless. And what will it achieve? There are still crimes affecting us, like the recent death of Norbert Leo Butzes’ lesbian sister. And countless others we may not hear of as gays and lesbians are attacked or killed in obscurity.

So has there been real progress? At times I’ll say yes. At other times, I’ll say no.But certainly things are changing, voices are growing louder, and strides are being taken.

I would be confident in saying, however, that no matter what we think, it would do us well to see Laramie Project: Ten Years Later this October, and hear what the people we met ten years ago have to say about everything today. And maybe as we sit in the theater and listen to their words, we can begin to imagine how we can make things better for Laramie Project: Twenty Years Later.

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