Judy Shepard Interview - Matthew 11 years later - Ellen revisits The Matthew Shepard Murder

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• Description : "The 10-year anniversary was coming...(more) up, and I started thinking about the long-term impact of Matthew's murder," says Kaufman. "I thought if we returned to Laramie, we could have a sense of how an event like that translated into change that is concrete and lasting 10 years later." So Kaufman and colleagues from the New York-based Tectonic went back to Laramie, did more interviews, and started writing again. On Monday evening, 150 theaters from New York to Los Angeles, Orlando to Syracuse and Madrid to Hong Kong will host staged readings of the 80-minute "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later." Many theater companies and universities have added seminars, panels, film screenings and other programming. It's an unusually broad-based effort, and one that has implications for American theater at large. At the heart of both the original play and its epilogue is the killing of 21-year-old Shepard, found barely alive, tied to a fence just outside Laramie. Beaten, robbed and left to die by two local roofers around his age, Shepard was discovered by a bike rider and taken to a hospital. His last days in the hospital received enormous media attention, and Tectonic's productions further amplified a national dialogue on gay issues and hate crimes. "There are many in Laramie who think it one of the most important things in their history and many who are ashamed and have tried to rewrite history," says Kaufman, who also wrote and directed the much-produced "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde." "We went there with a hypothesis that there would have been great change, and that was correct. Whether the change is for better or worse or both is what people will see when they come to the show.""Right now, in this economy, theater artists are operating very much in fear and isolation," says Tresnjak. "Everyone is worried. It's great that something like this brings all the theaters together." Concludes playwright Doug Wright, who will portray Kaufman onstage at the La Jolla Playhouse: "Often, we feel theater has become a kind of rarefied museum and no longer has cultural or social relevance. The fact that 'The Laramie Project' has been done in so many colleges and secondary schools means it has influenced and informed a whole generation about these issues. "We don't think that theater has the power to change the world, and I think Moisés' plays prove other- wise." (less)