If you don’t know who Oliver Sipple is, you’re in good company. Andrew Kramer, playwright and literary manager of American Lives Theatre, had never heard Sipple’s story until he listened to an episode of Radiolab in 2017.
“I was driving and I got to my destination before the podcast had ended, and I risked being late to my engagement because I had to finish the story,” Kramer said. “And by the end of it, I was such a sobbing mess in my car that I had to be additionally late to compose myself.”
Sipple was a Vietnam Marine veteran who saved President Gerald Ford from an assassination attempt by Sara Jane Moore, becoming an instant American hero in the public eye. However, the public adoration was short-lived, as the press outed Sipple as a gay man and history ultimately forgot his name.
The story comes to life in Kramer’s new play, “Arlington, or Your Forgotten American Hero,” produced by ALT in partnership with Indy Pride.
If you go
Arlington, or Your Forgotten American Hero
🗓️ Now through June 7
📍 Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre, 705 N. Illinois St.
🎟️ Tickets start at $17
“Gerald Ford had two assassination attempts within 17 days of each other. The first one — Squeaky Fromme — was a member of the Manson family cult. And I grew up learning about that,” Kramer said. “Like, I knew Squeaky; I had never heard about Oliver. And I think there’s a very specific reason why history does not remember Oliver and it is indivisible to his gayness.”
Crafting a world-premiere play does not happen overnight. Kramer and the ALT team have been doing workshops and readings to refine the piece for over a year.
“It’s the most extensive development of a play that we’ve done in our company’s history,” Chris Saunders, director of “Arlington” and ALT founding artistic director, said. “We started gathering actors long before the play was cast just to read the initial drafts.”
One such actor was Michael Hosp, who plays Oliver Sipple in this production. Hosp relistened to the RadioLab podcast and watched documentaries about subjects like PTSD to further understand Sipple and portray him as a multi-dimensional person.
“He, like any person, was complex and had hopes and fears,” Hosp said. “And then just was rushed into this extraordinary situation after he had been through so much in the war.”
The play also brings up LGBTQ+ erasure, a theme that has been showing up in media most recently after gay politician and Navy veteran Harvey Milk’s name was removed from a Navy ship.
It also discusses hero and celebrity worship.
“We just love to see a new hero and then we love to see that new hero fall,” Saunders said. “There’s so many aspects that are so intrinsically American.”
Through its discussion of Sipple’s legacy as an American figure, the play is well suited to the theme of ALT’s season: “Our American Legacy.”
“He didn’t really get the end that he wanted,” Kramer said. “And that breaks my heart even to this day. And so, the play has become the send off into the light that we wish Oliver was given in real life.”
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Emily Worrell is a Mirror Indy freelance contributor and Indy Documenters assistant editor. You can reach her at emily.worrell@mirrorindy.org.
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