CONWAY, Ark. (October 7, 2009) – A reading of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, will be held in Cabe Theatre on the Hendrix College campus on Monday at 7 p.m. Sponsored by the Hendrix Players and the college’s Project Pericles civic engagement program, the reading is a compelling and groundbreaking epilogue to the original highly acclaimed play The Laramie Project, which since 2000 has been one of the most performed plays in America.
The Hendrix reading is one of more than 100 productions which will take place on Oct. 12 in theaters in all fifty states, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, Hong Kong and Australia, in addition to a New York performance at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.
The epilogue focuses on the long-term effects of the murder of Matthew Shepard on the town of Laramie. It explores how the town has changed and how the murder continues to reverberate in the community. The play also includes new interviews with Matthew’s mother Judy Shepard and Mathew’s murderer Aaron McKinney, who’s serving two consecutive life sentences. The writers (Tectonic Theater Project members Moisés Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Andy Paris, and Stephen Belber) also conducted many follow-up interviews Laramie residents from the original piece, including, Romaine Patterson, Reggie Fluty, Jedediah Shultz, Father Roger Schmidt, Jonas Slonaker and others.
“It is important that productions like this take place, but it is also crucial that there be deliberative discussion of the meaning of the play for our society,” said Ann Muse, associate professor of theatre arts at Hendrix. To foster such conversation, a talkback will be facilitated by Ruth Shepherd, executive director of Just Communities of Central Arkansas.
“The Tectonic Theater Project set out to find out how Laramie had changed in the ten years since the murder of Matthew Shepard. When we arrived, we were forced to confront the question, ‘How do you measure change in a community?’ One of the things we found when we got there, which greatly surprised us, was how many people in Laramie were trying to say this was not a hate crime,” said Moisés Kaufman, Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project. "We found the people of Laramie still fighting to own their own history, their own identity, their own story, and part of that is shaped by how they understand what happened that night to Matthew,” continued Leigh Fondakowski.
“Creating the epilogue also gave us the opportunity to talk to Aaron McKinney about his crime, what his thinking is about it now, and what his experience has been in prison over the past decade,," said Greg Pierotti, the company member who interviewed Aaron. "We were also able to speak with Matthew's mother, Judy Shepard, whose striking transformation from privately grieving mother to civil rights activist has captured the nation’s attention,” concluded Andy Paris.
More Information:
On October 6th of 1998 Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die tied to a fence in the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. He died 6 days later. His murder became a watershed historical moment in America that highlighted the violence and prejudice lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people face.
A month after the murder, the members of Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie and conducted interviews with the people of the town. From these interviews they wrote the play The Laramie Project, which they later made into a film for HBO. The piece has been seen by more than 50 million people around the country.
Tectonic Theater Project (Moisés Kaufman, Artistic Director, Greg Reiner, Executive Director, Jeffrey LaHoste, Managing Director, Dominick Balletta, General Manager) is an award-winning company whose plays have been performed around the world. Since 1992 TTP has produced innovative works that explore theatrical language and form, fostering an artistic dialogue with our audiences on the social, political and human issues of the day. The company has developed and produced works for theater and film, including: the smash hit Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde; The Laramie Project (one of the most produced plays in the country, as well as an HBO movie written and directed by Kaufman); and I Am My Own Wife (2004 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for best play). Tectonic has garnered numerous awards including the Humanitas Prize, the Obie, the Lucille Lortel Award, The Outer Critics Circle Award, the GLAAD Media Award, the Artistic Integrity Award from the Human Rights Campaign, and the Making a Difference Award from the Matthew Shepard Foundation. The film of The Laramie Project was also honored with four Emmy Nominations, The National Board of Review Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie and a Golden Bear Award from the Berlin Film Festival. In addition to creating theatrical works, Tectonic Theater Project works in residence at Universities around the country and hosts a New York based training lab for theater artists.
As a non-profit laboratory we are grateful for the long term support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Greenwall Foundation, The Arcus Foundation, The Small Change Foundation, The Educational Foundation of America, Shawn Donnelley, Judy Dimon, and the donors and friends of Tectonic. For more information on the company, visit www.tectonictheaterproject.org.
For more information visit www.laramieproject.com and www.tectonictheaterproject.org
Hendrix, founded in 1876, is a selective, residential, undergraduate liberal arts college emphasizing experiential learning in a demanding yet supportive environment. The college is among 165 colleges featured in the 2008 edition of the Princeton Review America’s Best Value Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.