THEATRE + COMEDY

Theatre New West and Holocaust Museum Houston are extremely proud to present The Laramie Project. This major event production will have a total of 8 performances from June 24 thru July 24.

Theatre New West produced BENT at the Museum in 2004 , the run was SOLD OUT and brought back the following year. TNW also presented THE TIMEKEEPRS at the Museum in 2009. Director Joe Watts approached Susan Myers, Executive Director of the Museum, last fall and ask to present THE LARAMIE PROJECT there. Susan replied “Why have we not presented “Laramie” at the Museum before since it is such a “perfect fit”. So it was decided to open the production during Gay Pride 2010, and the rest as they say is history.

The production will open on June 24 during Pride 2010.

THE MATTHEW SHEPARD FOUNDATION is very excited that Judy Shepard, Matthew’s Mother, has been invited to be a part of this production. She will be in Houston from July 8 thru the 10. She has been invited and will speak at the “Max Kaplan Summer Institute” for Educators, held at Holocaust Museum Houston on July 8. She will also speak before the Theatre New West production of THE LARAMIE PROJECT on Saturday, July 10. There is also a “book signing” to be held in her honor for her book “THE MEANING OF MATTHEW: My Son’s Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed.” Mayor Annise Parker has also been invited to attend the performance with Ms. Shepard, and to possibly speak with her that evening.

ABOUT THE PLAY:

THE LARAMIE PROJECT - is based on interviews of the Laramie community after Matthew Shepard, 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.

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