From Laramie to Kalamazoo, Gay Rights Challenged

From Laramie to Kalamazoo, Gay Rights Challenged
February 2008
By Mary Corcoran

When notorious gay-bashing preacher and propagandist Fred Phelps announced on his website, godhatesfags.com, that he would picket a Kalamazoo, Michigan high school production of The Laramie Project, locals responded. No one in the community foresaw the good that would come out of his ultimately empty threat. Set in Laramie, Wyoming, 1998, the play documents the community’s reaction to the brutal beating and murder of gay University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shephard.

The play, which is the second most popular production performed on the high school and university level in the country, is often the target of hate, and Phelps and parishioners of the Westboro Baptist Church are regularly the loudest, most visible demonstrators. Phelps, who is featured as a character in the play protesting Shepard’s funeral, has called it “a perverted, tacky showing presented by the Fags to help generate sympathy for their abominations.”

Phelps’s daughter, Nancy-Phelps Roper, a parishioner and attorney for the Topeka-based church, said in a phone interview she expected “no more than ten” of the congregation’s approximately 70 parishioners to protest the Kalamazoo production. When opening night arrived on February 22nd, security at the high school was tight, with police and school safety officers stopping every person looking to enter the theatre. No press was allowed and no one entered without a ticket. In the theatre’s lobby, seven activist groups including PeaceJam, Michigan Equality, and Triangle Foundation, distributed literature and spoke with attendees.

Outside, a small group of exclusively local protesters were quickly deterred by police and a peaceful, student-led counter protest. The students of Kalamazoo Central High School donned angel wings and white gowns, having been inspired by a scene in the original production of The Laramie Project, in which Shepard’s friends and fellow students do the same and join hands to “block the hate” generated by Phelps and his group at Shepard’s assailants’ trial.

Stop The Hate in Kalamazoo Coalition, a group formed directly in response to Phelps’ announced intentions, is comprised of twelve community activist groups, many who know the WBC all too well. According to the coalition, Phelps has a long history of announcing intentions to protest against events in order to incite rage and hate within a given community. Phelps’s group, which is regularly monitored by the Anti-Defamation League, frequently does not show up; the buzz of media attention surrounding their protests achieves their goal of entertaining and giving voice to hate.

Even from a distance, the WBC’s message of hate was clear. Phelps-Roper decried community inaction against the production—“God hates Kalamazoo and every member of this community,” she said in a phone interview. As for the young cast, Phelps-Roper had equally strong words: “Shame on them, they couldn’t do anything if they were not propped up and supported and sponsored by parents and the city and the state—they’re just doing what they do in doomed America,” she said. “It’s a favorite pastime of this nation to corrupt the youth as young as they can get the job done.”

And yet Kevin Dodd, assistant director of the high school production, thanked the WBC after the show. “They gave us something as a community to push against—to get focused, get moving,” he said.

At the forefront of the movement was the Kalamazoo-based Arcus Foundation, a group committed to achieving social justice for all people. They countered the hate first by co-sponsoring the high school production, and second, by organizing and funding a visit from Moises Kaufman, playwright and director of the award winning original production of The Laramie Project. In a press conference, Kaufman praised the students for having inherited the words of a community that was in great mourning, and using them as a tool to soul search. “High school students are leading perhaps the most enlightened dialogue in the community,” he said.

Nearly a decade ago, when Kaufman and his company at The Tectonic Theatre Project first traveled to Laramie to conduct interviews with community residents, they were struck by the town’s tremendous likeness to the rest of small-town USA. There is “something truly profoundly American about this play,” said Kaufman, who credits its strength to the unbiased portrayals of each interviewee and the careful respect exercised on behalf of even homophobic perspectives.

“The Laramie Project doesn’t advocate anything,” said Kaufman. “I want to believe that good ideas will come to the surface and bad ideas will perish under their own weight.” In the years since his play kicked off the Sundance Film Festival in 2002, Kaufman has not had contact with Phelps. “He’s not there to talk to anybody,” said Kaufman. “He’s not interested in dialogue.”

Not even Phelps could muffle the optimistic and encouraging dialogue in Kalamazoo, as the high school production sold out each of its five performances and the community banded together to show its support. Despite the initial shock surrounding Phelps’s announcement, student actor Emily Deering said of her community, “In 48 hours, we were one.”

“The play is not really about Matthew Shepard, but the many ways that a community/school reacts to acts of prejudice, discrimination, and violence,” said high school theater director Topher Barrett in his Director’s Note.

When Barrett first proposed to put on The Laramie Project, he was met with unexpected, but welcome support from students, parents and the administration. “I was sort of scared that I didn’t get more resistance,” he said. Anticipating controversy from the beginning, he carefully screened his cast and worked extensively to educate his students.

For the student-actors, The Laramie Project became more than an artistic expression of social commentary. Even before the cast and crew began learning their lines and designing the set, Barrett organized a trip for his students to see the play performed in Wisconsin, more than four hours’ drive away. Despite Barrett’s vigorous prepping, the production suffered some significant setbacks during its six weeks of rehearsal (one ensemble member quit the company less than two weeks before opening night). More indicative of the social implications of The Laramie Project in Middle America is the experience of one student who accepted an ensemble role, only to quit the following day after his mother forbade his participation.

Barrett encountered encouraging experiences, as well. One student actor, Khari Whimper, said that before working on the play, he was too narrow-minded, but after immersing himself in the story and getting to know Laramie and its residents through reading and reciting testimonials, Whimper said he had learned more than tolerance—he had learned acceptance by opening up his mind and coming to truly respect others.

Kalamazoo Central’s production concludes with a slideshow of pictures accompanied by names, ages, dates and cities, followed by a clear and simple message:

Some were gay.
Some were transgendered.
Some were straight.
Homophobia killed them all.

After the performance, the cast of nine expressed their hopes, urging the community to maintain its togetherness and raised awareness, and to keep the conversation of change going, even after the curtain closes.

“Change is coming,” said Kaufman, reflecting on the community response. “We are in the middle of this moment of change.”