Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1139

MY PERSON: The latest clip from The Devotion Project features a trans man and his family.

CHINA: Hero bus driver hit by metal shard and killed, but not before he saves his passengers.

727: Oregon man lives in a renovated passenger jet.

THE LARAMIE PROJECT: The feature film of Moises Kaufman's play about Matthew Shepard.

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.

Voice of Matthew Shepard's Killer to Feature in Laramie Epilogue

In August I posted about the 80-minute epilogue to The Laramie Project which was to open on the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death. Some new details: the show will be opening at more than 130 theaters simultaneously on October 12.

The AP reports that a major segment of the show features testimony from Aaron McKinney (above, center), whom gay actor/writer Greg Pierotti interviewed for more than 10 hours:

"According to the detailed notes taken by Pierotti and condensed into the new script, McKinney says he had been drawn to crime ever since childhood, feels sympathy for Shepard's parents and expresses regret that he let his own father down. 'As far as Matt is concerned, I don't have any remorse,' McKinney is quoted as saying in the script, which was provided to The Associated Press by the production company. McKinney, according to the script, reiterates his claim that the 1998 killing in Laramie, Wyo., started out as a robbery, but makes clear that his antipathy toward gays played a role. 'The night I did it, I did have hatred for homosexuals,' McKinney is quoted as saying. He goes on, according to the script, to say that he still dislikes gays and that his perceptions about Shepard's sex life bolstered his belief that the killing was justified. McKinney and his accomplice, Russell Henderson, targeted Shepard at a bar in Laramie in part because they assumed he was gay, according to the script. 'Well, he was overly friendly. And he was obviously gay,' McKinney is quoted as saying. 'That played a part ... his weakness. His frailty. And he was dressed nice. Looked like he had money.'"

Of Judy Shepard's ongoing work against hate crimes, McKinney says: "...she never shuts up about it, and it's been like 10 years."

Pierotti says he wanted to address whether or not the murder was a hate crime, a question raised by a sensationalist 20/20 segment by Elizabeth Vargas in 2004 claiming the murder was motivated by drugs.

Adds Pierotti: "He's perfectly comfortable acknowledging he doesn't like gay people, and for me it was unnerving to experience his lack of remorse. Yet I feel very protective of him — not in an apologist way, but I see he has a lot of complexity. ... As an artist, it's more interesting to dig into who this person is."

The New York performance, which will take place at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, will reportedly be connected to all the other performances by the internet with a live question-and-answer session following the debut.

80-Minute Epilogue to The Laramie Project in the Works

On the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death, this October 11, at least 40 and up to 100 regional theaters across the U.S. will debut an 80-minute "epilogue" to The Laramie Project, the NYT reports:

"Moisés Kaufman, the playwright and director who, with his Tectonic Theater Project company, wrote and produced the first 'Laramie Project,' said the epilogue would explore the impact of the Shepard killing on the residents of Laramie, Wyo., where it occurred. The dialogue will be drawn from interviews with dozens of people there, some of whom were involved in the crime, including Aaron McKinney, who was convicted of murdering Mr. Shepard and who gave an interview to the Tectonic artists. 'We wanted to see what occurs in a small town in the long run when it’s been subject to such a devastating event,' Mr. Kaufman said in an interview. 'What has been the long-lasting effect of this watershed moment? Is the fallout of these events positive, negative or perhaps a better question, is it measurable in those terms?' In holding multiple premieres of the play on the same night, Mr. Kaufman said he was taking a page from the Federal Theater Project, the New Deal program that often opened plays in a multitude of cities on the same night."

The New York performance, which will take place at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, will be connected to all the other performances by the internet with a live question-and-answer session following the debut.

Big Opening for Epilogue to ‘The Laramie Project’ [nyt]

Kaufman and collaborators Stephen Belber, Leigh Fondakowski, Andy Paris and Greg Pierotti interviewed Laramie residents and people involved in the original Laramie Project last fall and posted some of the excerpts from those interviews on YouTube in June.

Watch the excerpts, AFTER THE JUMP...

Kaufman wrote, in a blog entry of September 13 on the first day of interviews: "It's important to remember that Laramie was very hurt not only by the brutal murder but by the media portrayal of it as a town of "rednecks and hillbillies and cowboys" which of course it's not. What we found so interesting about Laramie is not how different it is from the rest of the country, but how similar. Ten years ago we heard so many times people cry out against the media portrayal: 'We're not like this!'. The town's reputation had been tarnished. And there's still the need for many people to 'set the record straight'. Several of the interviewees talked about burnout. There's still so much work to do in the state. And too many people who want to 'put this behind them'."

Watch the excerpted interviews, AFTER THE JUMP...

Exclusive: A Conversation on 33 Variations Kevin Sessums Talks to Jane Fonda and Moises Kaufman

 

KEVIN SESSUMS

I recently had a conversation with Moises Kaufman and Jane Fonda. Kaufman’s play, 33 Variations, opens on March 9th at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on Broadway with Fonda as its leading lady. She plays a musicologist who is trying to solve the mystery of Beethoven spending so much time writing 33 variations based on a short waltz by Anton Diabelli. She, like the composer, is battling against time. He was going deaf. She has a life-threatening disease. Among her costars are Samantha Mathis, who plays the daughter with whom she’s had difficulties and Colin Hanks — yes, Tom’s son — who plays her nurse.

Kaufman is the writer and director of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and The Laramie Project. He directed, among other plays, I Am My Own Wife and Liev Schreiber’s Macbeth at the Public Theatre. He is the artistic director of the Tectonic Theater Project.

We all know Fonda’s credits — or many of them. She’s been at this for fifty years. I ask after a mutual friend, Pat Newcomb, who was the publicist for everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Barbra Streisand to Warren Beatty. “You know I took Pat to the Czech Republic right after the Velvet Revolution and we met Vaclav Havel,” she says, smiling at the memory and petting her small Coton de Tulear dog named Tulea who is curled in her lap.

I recall the first time I ever met her. “It was years ago,” I tell her and mention one of my best friends from college who became one of her closest Hollywood pals for a while. We all had dinner at Joe Allen.

“It couldn’t have been that many years ago,” she said.

“Yeah. It was,” I tell her. “Maybe the early ‘80s. We each had vestiges of a shag and you showed up with your stepmother.”

She laughs.. “I’ve had several. Which one?” she asks.

“I think her name was Susan.”

“Oh, yes, yes. Susan! Yes. Now I remember.”

“I walked you back to your hotel and you told a rather risque joke about arriving at The Pearly Gates and the conversation that ensued with Saint Peter. I remember thinking to myself — shit — Jane Fonda is funny. Who knew she was funny?

JANE FONDA: I’ve gotten funnier. I had to keep up with Ted Turner. He’s hysterical. You’ve got to have a sense of humor to be married to Ted Turner.

KEVIN SESSUMS: That could be a compliment or an insult. He allowed you to get more in touch with your own sense of humor?

JF: Well, he allowed me to ... ah ... well... yeah. That’s all. Yeah.

KS: After your divorce from him, you kept living in Atlanta. Do you consider yourself a Southerner now?

JF: Yes, I do. I’ve lived there for over 18 years.

KS: Moises, we met at the “Mormon March” after Prop 8 passed in California and we New Yorkers took to the streets in solidarity. We were both rendezvousing with some guys at the Barnes and Noble next to the Mormon Visitors Center. I was with my old boyfriend Peter Staley.

MOISES KAUFMAN: Yes, of course. We were meeting Tony Kushner and his husband, Mark Harris. Doug Wright and his husband, David Clement. To be demonstrating with Tony in front of the Mormon Visitors Center — because that’s where half of Angels in America takes place — was very moving.

KS: It had the dramatic contours of a Moises Kaufman play.

MK: Yes, I guess it did, didn’t it. I was very moved that night.

JF: Someone emailed Moises a picture of me with Harvey Milk during a “No on Prop 6” march.

KS: Well, honey, you do have a history of marches. I’d expect you to have a picture with Harvey Milk.

JF: It’s why I loved Sean’s performance so much. I knew Harvey and he totally got him.

Continued, AFTER THE JUMP...