THEATRE + COMEDY

The Laramie Project is not cancelled, but has a new beginning and is being produced and performed under a different name, for two nights only, Dec. 11th and 12th, at FrenetiCorp Theatre.

After our director walked out on us, we, the cast members, decided to produce the play ourselves. With a great, new director from New York City, we regrouped and are almost sold out for two nights. There is strong interest from local churches and other venues for additional performances, but nothing has been confirmed at this time. We will keep you updated on a possible tour in Spring of 2010.

The Laramie Project is based on interviews of the Laramie community after Matthew Shepherd, a young, gay student at the University of Wyoming, was savagely beaten and left hanging on a fence to die. The interviews were conducted by the Tectonic Theater Company from NYC. When it first came out in 1998 it was the most produced play in America, both by regional theaters and at colleges and universities. It was also an international success, and made into a film, produced by HBO.

This is the perfect time to produce the play. The Tectonic group, returned to Laramie ten years later, to again interview members of the community about what had changed since the last time, and to interview the two assailants. They have written a new play titled The Laramie Project-TEN YEARS LATER. On October 12, 150 different theaters and universities across the county, on the same night, held staged readings of the new play. In Houston the reading was staged by the University of Houston Theatre Department.

Also Matthew’s Mother, Judy Shepard, has a new book that just came out titled: “THE MEANING OF MATTHEW: My Son’s Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed.”

On Saturday night, October 10, in Washington D.C., there was a special dinner held by the Human Rights Campaign. It was the eve of the following Sunday’s March on Washington for Gay Rights for: inclusion of sexual orientation in the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, to reverse the military policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and for same sex marriage. President Obama spoke at the dinner and promised Matthew’s parents, who were at the dinner, that he would make sure the bill, which bears their son’s name, would pass, to include “sexual orientation”. He also promised to push for an end to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. President Obama kept his promise, on October 28th he signed a bill that would make it a Federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation.

Some of the reviews The Laramie Project has received include:

“Deeply moving…This play is OUR TOWN with a question mark, as in ‘Could this be our town?’ -The New York Times

“Astonishing. Not since ANGELS IN AMERICA has a play attempted so much; nothing less than an examination of the American psyche at the end of the millennium.” -Associated Press

“THE LARAMIE PROJECT is a terrific piece of theater, history, and life…There emerges a mosaic as moving and important as any you will see on the walls of the churches of the world…Nothing short of stunning…You should not miss a theatrical and human event that deserves standing up for, with applause, or better yet, silently, taking an important lesson profound to heart.” -New York magazine