Tonight a bunch of us are going to see a play called “The Laramie Project“. The play is made up of conversations had in Laramie, Wyoming following the murder of Matthew Shepard. Matthew Shepard was an openly gay college student who in October 1998 was kidnapped, beaten and left tied to a fence for 18 hours before his unconcious body was found. He died several days later in the hospital.
Throughout the play various conversations and views from regular people in Laramie are portrayed. Some of them funny, some of them sad though all of them are bound to be emotional. I will write a review tomorrow about the play. If you want to read more about Matthew Shepard and this horrible incident check out this featured New York Times Archive. I think the most vivid image from all of the articles on this site is the following “About 18 hours after the beating, a bicyclist found him still alive, tied to a ranch fence. Reggie Fluty, an Albany County sheriff’s deputy, testified on Thursday that Mr. Shepard’s wrists had been so tightly bound that it had been difficult to cut the rope and that his head had been covered in blood except for a clean spot “where he’d been crying and the tears went down his face.””