Laramie

I felt bad yesterday because I didn't have time to write my blog...but now I see it doesn't matter. I think I'm the only one who still writes a blog. Crying.

Last night I got to be in a reading of The Laramie Project and Epilogue, which if you are familiar with the original play, is about the murder of Mathew Shepard. This was a fascinating look at the town ten years later. I remember very vividly the murder and then driving through Laramie two years later on my way to NY. It felt like a sad and repressed place. The play focuses on what has changed since the murder, and it's good and bad, because for some people a lot changed for the better, and for others, they prefer to pretend that the crime was not a hate crime. One of the things that struck me most about the play was that one of the policeman who was responsible for the conviction of the two killers was homophobic before the murder, and he said that by being forced to work with the gay community, he realised that his whole life he had been precluding a group of people from friendship. A group of good people. And that he's made a 180 degree turn in his heart. But what troubles him is that it took the murder of this young man for him to realize that. I just thought how wonderful that he was able to change his mind, and see past his fear, and that now he has wonderful relationships with people who ten years before he would have avoided. And the police department in Laramie defends the gay community that lives there. They were able to build that relationship. So many wonderful things came out of that murder. And there are still people who hate another group of people for no reason, but this example of it changing was very inspiring to me.

Anyway, we did two performances of the play last night, and as I was leaving I saw a young man hugging our director, weeping and thanking her. Theatre is still powerful, I don't care what people say about it!