The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later Coming to College Park

Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center to Host One of 140 National Readings

College Park, Md. -- One decade after the brutal murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo., the Tectonic Theater Project returned to Laramie to interview residents about how their community grappled with the killing. The result, an 80-minute production entitled "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later," will be featured at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center's Dekelboum Concert Hall at 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12. Admission is free.

The center, located on the University of Maryland campus, is one of approximately 140 sites nationwide -- and one of only two in the metro Washington, D.C., area -- to host the public readings on Oct. 12, the 11th anniversary of Shepard's death. This event is presented by the center as part of the university's Semester on Peace.

Written by Tectonic Theater Project members Moisés Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Andy Paris, Greg Pierotti and Steven Belber, "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later" finds the cast members revisiting the community and residents of Laramie to follow up on their 1998 investigation, "The Laramie Project." Time magazine called that first production a pioneering work and a powerful stage event. The interviews, stories and testimony collected during the current project serve as the basis for the play and its investigation of the long-term cultural impact of the Shepard murder, which has become a rallying cry for gay rights and hate-crime laws.

New interviews with Shepard's mother, Judy Shepard, are featured in the epilogue, along with interviews with Shepard's murderer, Aaron McKinney, who is serving dual life sentences. Several members of the D.C.-based Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, including Mary Beth Wise, Mitchell Hébert, Michael Tolyado and Peggy Yates, along with student actors, will portray various members of the Laramie community and others involved in the immediate aftermath of the murder.

The evening will start with a pre-show event broadcast link to Lincoln Center in New York City. Featuring the Tectonic Theatre Company and special guests and hosted by actress Glenn Close, the pre-performance event will unite audiences in theatres across the nation who are about to experience the epilogue. Following the reading, participants will rejoin the proceedings at Lincoln Center for a lively discussion with an expert panel to explore the continuing impact of "The Laramie Project."

For more information please contact: Andrew Zender, 301.405.8151; Gayle Stamler, 301.405.8169.

Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

2002: Laramie Project Playwright to Visit Campus

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