In the fall of 1998, Aaron Kriefels, a university student in Laramie, Wyoming took an early morning bike ride to the top of Cactus Canyon. He fell off his bike, and when he got up, he noticed what looked like a body tied to a fence. Julia Hoff plays the role of the student who found Matthew Shepard.
Aaron Kriefels in the play: You know I just thought it was a dummy. But once I saw hair, I realized it was a human being. And it’s kind of unbelievable to me. You know that I happened to be the person who found him. Because the biggest question with me, with my religion, is like why did God want me to find him.
Julia Hoff said this role was draining.
“Having to put yourself in the position of that character can cause things like second hand trauma,” Hoff said. “I have experienced a lot in the rehearsal process with him because of that.”
The play does require a lot of the actors. Hoff plays ten characters affected by the brutal murder of Mathew Shepard, as do the other actors in the company.
After Shepard’s death, a theater troupe in New York went to Laramie and interviewed 200 residents over the next two years. The Laramie Project tells the story of the town and the aftermath of an anti-gay hate crime in their words.
Joshua McCabe directs this Wright State production.
“For me,” McCabe reflected, “It’s the constant reminder of the domino effect of just how many humans were affected a whole community of people and beyond.”
National response to Matthew Shepard’s murder helped shift public opinion toward gay people over the last 25 years. Xiao NI is another actor in the production. He came out as trans and gay in his first year of high school.
At his senior prom, eight boys cornered him in the men’s bathroom, recalled Xiao Ni. “I remember just standing there and staring at them, but I thought I was about to get beat up or verbally harassed. Luckily, the worst that happened was that they were just laughing loudly about how I was in there as they brushed past me. Which was not great for me.”
One of Xiao Ni’s characters in the play is Harry Woods, a gay man in his 50’s. Harry remembers looking out his window because he had a cast on his leg. He watched the university homecoming parade days after Shepard’s murder.
Harry Woods in the play: I’ve lived here for many years, and I have seen…a lot. There were at least 500 people marching for Matthew. Tears were streaming down my face, and I thought, “Thank God, I got to see this in my lifetime. Thank you, Matthew."
Xiao Ni, the actor, says he connects with Harry across the generations. “I understand, still, the fear of even saying that I am gay,” Xiao Ni remarked. “I still, I feel like I hesitate. And you can feel that in Harry Woods, but there’s also like that deep desire, and you can hear it in the text that, like, he wants to be able to be just who is. Because I think his choice not to participate but to watch was more about his own fear about what could happen rather than what he says, which is that he has a cast on his leg.”
All the actors in The Laramie Project play some people whose beliefs they disagree with. For Julia Hoff, who identifies as queer, she had to approach these characters physically first, their walk and speech. Xiao Ni built on his memories of people who didn’t know how to talk with him as a trans person.
During rehearsals, the cast found that many of these Laramie residents used the same phrase, “Live and Let Live,” to address their beliefs. Director Josh McCabe put it this way: ”So on some level, live and let live can sound generous. “Hey, you do your thing, I’ll do my thing, and we’ll all just live here together. Okay, well. Live and let live also for some characters come with rules. I’ll let you live as long as you follow the rules of how you live.”
Recently, a school district in Kansas banned The Laramie Project from their curriculum. The ruling echoes “don’t say gay bills" around the country. XiaoNi first studied the play in a high school theater class. “Now, I’m actually in it, said Xiao Ni, “I’m doing it for real, and it’s just affirming.”
For information and tickets, go to the Wright State theatre box office website.
Support for Culture Couch comes from WYSO Leaders Frank Scenna and Heather Bailey, who are proud to support storytelling that sparks curiosity, highlights creativity and builds community and Ohio Arts Council.
Culture Couch is created at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO.