In October 1998, Matthew Shepard, a young college student in Wyoming, was beaten and left to die in a brutal homophobic attack. That incident so moved me that I wrote a play, How High the Moon, as a tribute to him. That play went on to win the Stanley Drama Award.

Matthew’s 50th birthday would have been December 1, 2026. I’m hoping many theaters will want to pay tribute to him, perhaps by producing How High the Moon. I know that theaters plan their seasons well in advance, which is why I am posting this now for the 2026-2027 season.

To me, Matthew’s murder seemed larger than a single incident, but rather a summation of the murderous hatred that has long plagued gays. I had the idea to juxtapose it against the Holocaust, because what bigger act of hatred has there ever been? In researching what happened to gays during the Holocaust, I came across the true story of an unlikely love affair between a Polish youth and Nazi soldier during the German occupation of Warsaw. I decided to weave together the two stories to show a single hate crime (Matthew’s murder) in the context of a national homophobic agenda.

That juxtaposition feels eerily prescient in today’s America with its simmering backlash against LGBTQ rights, loose talk about incarcerating gays in “big and beautiful” detention camps, and a Cabinet Secretary who circulated his pastor’s podcast calling for Gay Pride marchers to be drowned.

In How High the Moon, a Polish youth turns to prostitution to support his family and falls in love with a German soldier. Eighty years later, an American college student risks his life when he comes out to his closest friend and tells her that he plans to participate in the Gay Pride Day parade. Both stories, woven together, play off each other, and test the strength of love against crushing odds.

Please let me know if you’d like to read the script. Send a message or use the contact form on my website: www.timothyjaysmith.com. Thanks!

Author: Purple Circuit