LGBT POV

By Hywel Sims, Executive Director of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles

Looking back’s such an old-fashioned idea in America. Especially here in California, we ignore the past every day, believing that tomorrow’s always more important than yesterday. But sometimes, the past comes back to nip at out heels, reminding us that some things don’t change, even though we think they do.  Do past events leave a stain, I wonder?

If Laramie Project; Ten Years Later…an Epilogue is anything to go by, past events leave an indelible mark on lives and communities, especially when they are as vicious as hate and murder. And particularly when that murder grows to represent the centuries of hate we’ve endured as gay men, as people who are dangerous because we’re different.

What happens when you mention Matthew Shepard in Laramie today? That’s what Moises Kaufman and his team of writers set out to discover when they returned to the city ten years after Matt was hung on a fence, and left to die. The answer is revealed in Moises’ new work, which will be premiered at 100 different venues in simultaneous stagings on October 12^th, the eleventh anniversary of Matthew’s death. We’ll be hosting the west LA launch at The Broad Stage that evening. Because we’re musicians, we added music which – if rehearsals are anything to go by – only amplifies the power of the complicated, but very familiar, series of reactions Moises discovered in Laramie.

I m not given to tears very much, but I found myself weeping at a recent rehearsal. I think I’ve figured out why. The views and thoughts which Laramie people share are simple, sometimes clichéd, all too familiar – and chilling. Hate can be casual and, when it is, it’s even more frightening. Add music to hate and all hell lets loose.  I suspect I won’t be the only one weeping on October 12^th. That night, already stained by murder, will now be marked by a simultaneous reading of words which, when you hear them, will remind you how much work we still have to do if we’re to be safe and, one day, free.

(Go to  the GMCLA website for more info. Also see The Laramie Project for more background on the national event.)