La Jolla Playhouse Presents Reading of THE LARAMIE PROJECT: 10 YEARS LATER with Wright, Foxworth, Sands & Winningham

On October 12, 2009, La Jolla Playhouse will join with theatres across the country in presenting a reading of the Tectonic Theater Project's new work: The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, by The Laramie Project creators Moisés Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Andy Paris and Stephen Belber. This compelling and groundbreaking epilogue to the original piece will premiere on October 12, 2009 at Lincoln Center's AlIce Tully Hall and at more than 100 other theaters in all 50 states, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, Hong Kong and Australia.

La Jolla Playhouse will host the only San Diego reading of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later on October 12 at 8:00pm in The Playhouse's Mandell Weiss Forum. The reading will be helmed by acclaimed director Darko Tresnjak. The cast includes Doug Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winner and adapter/director of The Playhouse's upcoming production of Creditors, San Diego Rep Artistic Director Sam Woodhouse, local theater writer and former Union-Tribune theater critic Anne Marie Welsh, as well as the acclaimed actors Mare Winningham, Robert Foxworth, Amanda Naughton, James Newcomb, Stark Sands, T. Ryder Smith, James Sutorius, among many others.

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 also conducted many follow-up interviews Laramie residents from the original piece, including, Romaine Patterson, Reggie Fluty, Jedediah Shultz, Father Roger Schmidt, Jonas Slonaker, Beth Loffreda and others.

Tickets for The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later are $15. Proceeds from The Playhouse reading will benefit the Hillcrest Youth Center, a program operated under the auspices of the San Diego LGBT Community Center. Tickets and information are available by calling (858) 550-1010 or online at www.lajollaplayhouse.org.

"We are honored to bring The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later to The Playhouse," said La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley. "The murder of Matthew Shepard and its impact on the Laramie community is a truly powerful story, as Playhouse audiences experienced when we became one of the first regional theatres to present The Laramie Project in 2001. That play went on to be one of the most produced plays in America for two years running. Now ten years later, our hope is that the epilogue deepens the exploration of Matthew's death, and how it continues to reverberate. We are very pleased to bring this important American story to a new generation of theatregoers."

"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 people in Laramie saying this was not a hate crime," said Moises 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.

"Looking back on the tragedy of Matthew Shepard's brutal murder a decade later, it becomes clear that, although we have made progress, we still have a long way to go," said Dr. Delores A. Jacobs, CEO of the San Diego LGBT Community Center. "Until the day arrives when no student has to hide who they are out of fear of being bullied and no youth has to face the prospect of being abused because they're LGBT, ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of our LGBT young people will, and should, continue to be a top priority for all of those who care about youth safety."

Opened in 2000 with the vision and leadership of Dr. Heather Berberet, Richard Burhene, Scott Gross, and Jim Zians, The Hillcrest Youth Center is the only youth center in San Diego County dedicated to serving the needs of LGBT and questioning youth. The Youth Center offers cyber/computer access, health education, basic financial education, youth leadership training, case management, HIV prevention education, life skills training workshops, discussion groups, counseling services, and amazing social activities. At the heart of what the Hillcrest Youth Center offers is much larger than its excellent programs. The Hillcrest Youth Center is committed to providing a safe, affirming space for LGBTQ+ youth to be proud of who they are and the encouragement they need to become responsible, productive, and fully participating citizens.

Darko Tresnjak's credits include Cyrano, Coriolanus, The Pleasure of His Company, All's Well That Ends Well, Bell, Book and Candle, Hamlet, Pericles, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Titus Andronicus at The Old Globe; The Merchant of Venice at the Royal Shakespeare Company and Theatre for a New Audience, All's Well That Ends Well, Antony and Cleopatra at Theatre for a New Audience; The Two Noble Kinsmen at The Public Theatre; Princess Turandot and Hotel Universe at Blue Light Theater Company; The Skin of Our Teeth, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Winter's Tale, Under Milk Wood, Moving Picture, The Blue Demon, Princess Turandot and The Love of Three Oranges at Williamstown Theatre Festival; Heartbreak House, What the Butler Saw, Amphitryon and The Blue Demon at the Huntington Theatre; The Two Noble Kinsmen at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; A Little Night Music, Amour at Goodspeed Opera House; and La Dispute at UCSD. He is the recipient of the Alan Schneider Award for Directing Excellence, TCG National Theater Artist Residency Award, Boris Sagal Directing Fellowship, NEA New Forms Grant, two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowships, two San Diego Critics Circle Awards for his direction of Pericles and The Winter's Tale, and two Patté Awards for his direction of The Winter's Tale and Titus Andronicus. He was educated at Swarthmore College and Columbia University.

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. For more information on the company, visit www.tectonictheaterproject.org.

The nationally-acclaimed, Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse is renowned for its tradition of creating the most exciting and adventurous new work in regional theatre. The Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, and is considered one of the most well-respected not-for-profit theatres in the country. Numerous Playhouse productions have moved to Broadway, including Big River, The Who's Tommy, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, A Walk in the Woods, Dracula, Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays, the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Jersey Boys, The Farnsworth Invention, Cry-Baby, 33 Variations and Memphis. Located on the UCSD campus, La Jolla Playhouse is made up of three primary performance spaces: the Mandell Weiss Theatre, the Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre, and the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for La Jolla Playhouse, a state-of-the-Art Theatre complex which features the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre.

Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi