An Epilogue for Matthew Shepard

So, it all started with a call from Mike (Artistic Director at Westford Academy) the other week. “I need some head shots” was the gist of it. “No problem” I thought to myself right? Standard pricing bla bla bla. At the time I was frantically trying to tie up some loose ends with all the senior shoots so I could sneak away for a couple of days and fish the Derby down in MV. I guess at that moment I did not realize just how big this was, but I moved my return date up for the trip so that I could be there as I could tell this was very important to him.

It was not until I spoke with Gail later after she checked in with Mike to get the details that I think she made me understand what it was that we were really working on here with Mike. “How do we charge for this?” she asked me. She paused for a second and then answered her own question with …“We can’t”. She was right. I felt pretty stupid at that point when I realized how right she was.

Westford had been selected as one of only two public high school theater departments in the entire country to be used as a performance location. One of only two in the Bay State! One hundred locations for this reading where chosen across the US, and another fifty outside the US.

All One hundred and fifty theaters where to be joined via simulcast to New York city where actress Glen Close would open the evening.

“The Laramie Project 10 years later -- An epilogue” (by Moises Kauffman) focused on the long term effect that the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard had on the town of Laramie, Wyoming and how in my opinion Laramie as a town itself is a microcosm for the country as a whole. It uses dialogue from actual interviews with the towns people of Laramie and Matthews killers themselves.

For those of you who have not heard of Matthew Shepard, back in 1998 two men spotted Matthew in a bar and targeted him because of his sexual orientation, as his killer states in one of his interviews. In fact they pretended to be gay in order to lure Matthew from the bar. They took him to a remote area east of Laramie, Wyoming and tied him to a split-rail fence. Matthew was severely assaulted and tortured then left there to die. He was found the next day by a cyclist who thought at first that Matthew was a scarecrow (if that helps draw a picture of the condition that Matthew was in).

Matthew died 6 days later due to the injuries he sustained.

About a month after the murder The Tectonic Theater Company went to Laramie to interview the towns people about the how this had affected their community and created the play “The Laramie Project”. On the 10th anniversary, Tectonic Theater Project returned once again to Laramie for a second round of interviews which was the basis for “The Laramie Project 10 years later -- An epilogue”. By that time the original “The Laramie Project” had become one of the most frequently produced plays in America.

Personally I started to remember more and more about this the more I read. I remeber all the news coverage.

So when the Sunday finallt came to get the head shots they were missing a few people…..OK, like 6 of 14 were missing. Needless to say they did not happen that day. Instead I grabbed some P&R photos so they could send them off to the press et…



I went back that following Sunday (day before the performance) to finally get those cast head shots. In keeping with the gravity of the reading, I wanted something a bit more serious for these cast photos. Needless to say, smiling just did not seem to be the right fit this time around.



Well, that Monday evening started with the simulcast from NY with Glen Close as the MC after which Matthew Shepard’s mother came out on stage to speak live to all one hundred and fifty theaters.









The simulcast ended with the hand off of the performances to the individual theaters.




Gail and I didn’t know what to expect.

Mike told me not to worry about photographing the reading itself, but we brought the camera gear just in case we felt compelled.

Again, this was just supposed to be as Mike put it “a reading”.



Well from the second the Westford crew took the stage, We knew it was going to be more than that.














They put so much into there every mannerism, stage placements and just their overall presence.

I found myself immediately reaching for my gear and I took off down the theater wing so I could try my best to capture this while remaining out of sight.







I just could not see myself moving around in the aisle at all during this one.



Read more about this at Westford Academy's site, on Boston.com or in the Lowell Sun among a few of the places.


Hats off to Mr. Towers and all the alumni that came together to tell his story.