Dan Rogers, director of theatre at Bismarck State College will discuss the upcoming staged reading of “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later.” Bismarck State College Theatre will be one of over 120 venues nationwide that will present the world premier of the new play by the Tectonic Theatre project on October 12. The play is a follow-up to the 1999 production about the effect of the Mathew Shepard murder in Laramie, Wyoming. The new script includes new interviews with Judy Shepard, Mathew’s mother and Aaron McKinney the man convicted of this hate crime against a gay man.

Sunday, October 11, 2009
“NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY: WE ALL BENEFIT”
Dan Tokach and Allen Irish

Coming out is when people acknowledge, accept and appreciate their sexual orientation or gender identity and begin to share that with others. In 1970, The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations became the first religious faith to speak out against the discrimination that impacted the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Dan Tokach and Allen Irish are officers in Dakota Outright, a Bismarck-Mandan GLBT rights group.