WINSTON-SALEM – The University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) Odyssey Ensemble will present a staged reading of The Laramie Project at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 27, in the Thrust Theatre, Performance Place on the campus at 1533 South Main St., Winston-Salem.

 

The staged reading will feature UNCSA faculty and students and other members of the Winston-Salem community.

 

Donations are suggested; they will go to the UNCSA High School Drama Program and the newly formed Gay-Straight Alliance.

 

This poignant play, by Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theatre Project, is about how the town of Laramie, Wyoming, dealt with the aftermath of the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in 1992.

 

According to the Odyssey Ensemble: “In working with the newly formed high school Gay-Straight Alliance, we wanted to find a way to bring citizens of Winston-Salem together with the students and faculty of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts to refresh a dialogue about acceptance and difference in the community we share. The Laramie Project is one of the best plays we found that could do this.

 

“In a two-hour show, we will hear the re-told interviews of over 100 citizens of Laramie, Wyoming, and hopefully come out of the performance with a new idea of what acceptance means in 21^st-century Winston-Salem. We have no doubt that the City of Arts and Innovation is becoming a more open, fair and tolerant community, and we at UNCSA want to be a part of that process every step of the way.”

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem (“The City of Arts and Innovation”) in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from high school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state’s only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. UNCSA is located at 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu.

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