LARAMIE Update: Annette O'Toole And Stephen Schnetzer Featured in DC Reading; Who Wants Cake? To Host Reading In Michigan

As previously announced, on October 12, nearly 150 theaters nationwide will stage readings of the epilogue piece to 2000's The Laramie Project, entitled The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, in honor of the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death.  Two regional companies that have announced productions include Washington DC's Arena Stage and Who Wants Cake in Michigan.

This coda to the Laramie Project, The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, will premiere at Lincoln Center's AlIce Tully Hall with a pre-show hosted by Glenn Close that will be webcast to the dozens of theaters that will also be presenting this sequel piece.

The webcast will also include welcoming remarks by Matthew Shephard's mother and a post-show Q & A moderated by National Public Radio Arts and Culture correspondent Neda Ulabay.

The play is written by Tectonic Theater Project members Moisés Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Andy Paris, and Stephen Belber. Kaufman wrote and directed the original Laramie Project which premiered at the Denver Center Theater in 2000. The epilogue focuses on the long-term effects of the murder of Matthew Shepard on the town of Laramie, Wyoming. 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 Arena Stage in Washington DC has announced that their cast will feature The Quality of Life cast members Annette O'Toole (Off-Broadway's Kindness and TV's Smallville) and Stephen Schnetzer (Broadway and Arena's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?), as well as Drew Eshelman (Broadway's Les Miserables), Tim Getman (Arena's Death of Salesman and View from the Bridge), Helen Hedman (Arena's A Delicate Balance), Erika Rose (Helen Hayes Nominee for The African Continuum Theatre Company's Pretty Fire), Michael Russotto (Arena's Legacy of Light), and Kim Schraf (Helen Hayes nominee for Measure for Pleasure at Woolly Mammoth).

Tickets for The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later are free but must be reserved through the Arena Stage Sales Office by phone (202) 488-3300. For more information visit www.arenastage.org.

While Arena is the only host in the District, both the Reston Community Center in Reston, VA and the Clarice Smith Center in College Park, MD are also hosting readings and related events.

Who Wants Cake? will represent Detroit for the event, this performance will also take place at 8:00pm following the pre-show broadcast. The cast for both shows will be as follows: Jon Ager (West Bloomfield), Melissa Beckwith (Ferndale), Christa Coulter (Royal Oak), Cassandra McCarthy (Royal Oak), Dan Morrison (Ann Arbor), Joe Plambeck (Ferndale), Jamie Richards (Birmingham), and Jamie Warrow (Royal Oak). Joe Bailey (Ferndale) will direct.

In addition, a single performance of The Laramie Project , the original play, will take place on Sunday, October 11 at 7:00 PM. Both staged readings will take place at The Ringwald Theatre. Tickets are available by calling 248-545-5545 or logging onto www.WhoWantsCakeTheatre.com. All proceeds will be donated to the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

The creators of the highly acclaimed play The Laramie Project, which since 2000 has been one of the most performed plays in America, have created a compelling and groundbreaking epilogue to the original piece. Entitled THE LARAMIE PROJECT: 10 YEARS LATER, the play will be performed in New York at Lincoln Center's AlIce Tully Hall, and over 100 other theaters in all fifty states, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, Hong Kong and Australia on October 12, 2009. The writers of this play are Tectonic Theater Project members Moisés Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Andy Paris, and Stephen Belber.

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.