The parents of Matthew Shepard came to Philly to remember their son at the Mann Center

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Judy and Dennis Shepard only go where they are invited.

“I’m terrible at small talk,” Judy said during an interview in a backroom of the William Way Center in Philadelphia. “I’m a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, and I’m from Wyoming. There’s no people in Wyoming. I’m not used to crowds of people I don’t know.”

Nevertheless, Judy Shepard has been at the forefront of LGBTQ+ advocacy for 26 years, since the brutal killing of her son Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998. The attack and murder put gay-bashing crimes at the top of the nation’s mind.

Working in her son’s name, the Matthew Shepard Foundation helped pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009, which extends the federal hate crime law to include crimes against LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.

Judy and Dennis Shepard came to Philadelphia to attend “Considering Matthew Shepard,” a 2016 theatrical oratorio by Craig Hella Johnson which is having its Pennsylvania premiere at the Mann Center on Thursday evening.

The day before the performance, on Wednesday afternoon, the couple spoke to a gathering at William Way moderated by local trans performance artist Ebony Ali. They spoke about how they started working for LGBTQ+ advocacy almost immediately while still grieving the loss of their son, and how they have kept the Matthew Shepard Foundation going.

“The places we go are where we’re invited, because they are part of the choir. The choir needs to stay in practice,” said Dennis. “It is really important that we be out there in front of everybody to remind them. We don’t want you to lose your child or lose your neighbor’s child just because they’re considered different. Whether they’re straight or gay doesn’t matter. You’re just considered different so there’s a chance that this could happen to you or yours.”

“Considering Matthew Shepard” acts out the story of Shepard, from his upbringing in rural Wyoming, to his beating tied to a split-rail fence leading to his death three days later, and the aftermath involving the his funeral which was picketed by the notoriously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, led by Fred Phelps.

Mann Center president and CEO Catherine Cahill first saw a production in 2022 at the Trinity Church in New York. She was particularly struck by the end, when hundreds of choral singers entered and bathed the stage with their voices.

“It was all about unity and coming together,” Cahill said. “I was a puddle on the floor.”

She wanted to bring it to Philadelphia because it could be presented as part of the Downstage @ the Mann series, where smaller productions can be presented more intimately with the audience seated on stage with the performers.

It also allows Cahill to involve community members in the professional show. She tapped into local churches and the choral community to assemble almost 500 singers. They stream down from the auditorium seating to accompany the onstage performers.

“I’ve learned that from all the performances that have been done around the world, this is the largest choral component ever convened to do the remarkable embrace at the end of this work,” Cahill said.

Earlier this year, Judy Shepard was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor by President Joe Biden, but she told the gathering at William Way that the Matthew Shepard Foundation will not be around forever. Right now the Foundation has no staff, it’s just Judy and Dennis, and when they decide they can’t do it any longer, the Foundation will expire.

Judy said the point of the Foundation was to tell Matthew’s story. When the time comes she can’t do that, she does not want to hand stewardship of that mission to anyone else.

“I don’t trust what somebody else is going to do with Matty’s name,” she said. “We’ve turned down a lot of things that seemed inappropriate or didn’t make sense.”

The Shepards enthusiastically endorse “Considering Matthew Shepard,” and there have been several other projects about their son over the years, including the celebrated documentary theater production “The Laramie Project” and the films “The Matthew Shepard Story” and “Matthew Shepard is a Friend of Mine,” by Matthew’s boyhood boarding school friend, Michele Josue.

The next goal of the Matthew Shepard Foundation is the passage of the Equality Act, which would extend the protections of the Civil Rights Act to include LGBTQ+ people. The act has been bounced around in various iterations since 1974.

“The Equality Act has been Gathering dust on everybody’s desk in the Senate and the House,” Judy said. “The Equality Act will finally grant equal legal rights to the gay community in public accommodations nationwide. Right now it’s all just a patchwork across the country.”

Judy said the political climate in Congress right now does not favor the Equality Act. She is waiting for a shift in elected officials in Washington to push for its passage.

Dennis said security of the LGBTQ+ community has slid recently, and draws a clear, bright line to 2016 when former president Donald Trump came into office. In a 90-minute talk at William Way that often turned to politics, Dennis never spoke the name Trump.

“The LGBTQ+ community  – all the marginalized communities – were pushed down and pushed away by the administration starting in 2016,” he said. “The haters came out from underneath the rocks like cockroaches. With cockroaches, when you turn on the light they disappear. This time when the lights came on, they stayed put. The language they use now is something that would not have been used in 2015. Now it’s a common language.”

The Shepards came to Philadelphia with an additional message: Vote. Attendees at the William Way Center were encouraged to take buttons with Matthew’s image on them, reading “A vote for Matt is a vote for me.”