THE PULSE PROJECT Gets First Reading at Dramatists Guild This May

360repco presents the first reading of Sherry Bokser, Alyson Mead, Thom Fogarty and Amy Merrill's THE PULSE PROJECT on May 5th at 8 p.m. at Dramatists Guild's Mary Rodgers Room (1501 Broadway, 7th Floor).

On June 12, 2016, Omar Marteen, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a terrorist attack/hate crime inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. He was shot and killed by Orlando Police Department officers after a three-hour standoff, surpassing Seung-Hui Cho's 2007 rampage as the deadliest mass shooting in the United States. Pulse was hosting Latin Night and most of the victims were Latino. It was both the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter and the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in United States history. It was also the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

That same day, Sherry Bokser, Thom Fogarty, Alyson Mead and Amy Merrill arrived at the Kenyon Playwrights Conference, where they met a powerful, engaged group of friends and colleagues. For a few days, we wandered around in a daze, seeking ways to talk about it, not talk about it, wish it would go away. But of course, that was impossible. We still need to talk about it, until it never happens again.

After a few months of struggling with how to give these hard-working, interesting, funny and valuable humans a voice, Alyson Mead reached out to playwrights, to see if they'd be interested in helping write The Pulse Project. Bokser, Fogarty and Merrill heeded her call.

The result is THE PULSE PROJECT. It is structured as archetypal MONOLOGUES of some of those who found themselves in Pulse that fateful evening. We hope it will become a VAGINA MONOLOGUES style piece, designed for annual readings as fundraisers for GAY AGAINST GUNS and the LGBTQ community.

THE PULSE PROJECT is having its first reading at the DG on May 5th and then a stage reading benefit at Judson Church in New York on June 11th, 2017, with all proceeds going to Gays Against Guns. The May 5th cast includes: Jonathan Burke, Matt Cohn, Lulu Fogarty,Sam Morales, Jonelle Robinson, and Matthew Velez. Directed by Thom Fogarty.

We are to reaching out to other, similarly minded theatre companies, to see if they'd be interested in staging their own readings of the work during Pride Week - for the ones we lost, for this issue, and for anyone still healing from violence.

Partnering with GAYS AGAINST GUNS seems like a win/win.

Here is their Mission Statement: "Gays Against Guns NY is an inclusive group of LGBTQ people and their allies committed to nonviolently breaking the gun industry's chain of death--investors, manufacturers, the NRA and other lobby groups, and their puppets in Congress that block good gun laws.

We are New York-based but work with GAG chapters in other cities to ensure safety for all individuals, particularly vulnerable communities such as people of color, LGBTQ people, religious minorities, and their significant overlap.

We strongly believe that bigotry and hate plus easy access to lethal weapons is a deadly combination. We demand sensible and meaningful gun reform such as a ban on assault weapons and background checks on ALL gun sales, including online and at gun shows."

Visit www.gaysagainstguns.net/about for more information.