The 1998 death of Matthew Shepard, and trial of his killers, inspired the play, The Laramie Project. Now, a single performance of the play will begin in Sydney next week.
A long-running play about a historic homophobic hate crime in the US is now being performed in Sydney.One actor said he hopes this performance keeps Sydney's history of attacks and murders of gay men on people's minds."I would like nothing better than to see you die, Mr McKinney," he said.
Since Matthew's killing , his parents, Judy and Mr Shepard, have fought for stronger protections for LGBT people. "Those people deeply cared about what happened and were shattered and shocked. It started a movement."Writer Benjamin Law, another cast member, said the play captured how the people of Laramie tried to make sense of the unthinkable.Writer Benjamin Law, who is a cast member of the performance, said it's as much a piece of theatre as it is a piece of journalism.
"Twenty-five years later, you can still be fired in 30 of the 50 states. You still can't adopt in a lot of places," Mr Shepard said."The state motto is the 'equality state'. But they've left off two letters, because it is really the 'inequality state'," he said.
America United States Police Hate Crime Mathew Shepard Play Production Crime Murder Gay Homosexual Casey Donovan Benjamin Law Zindzi Okenyo Tony Sheldon Lyndon Watts Nicholas Brown
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