Dear Community of Laramie Project and dear Tectonic project:
 
My name is Vyana and I am writing from Producciones Palo de Agua from Caracas -Venezuela.
 
It was a great experience for us to participate in the reading. While we were waiting for the transmission form the Lincoln Center, we had a fantastic feeling of being part of an entire community of people who were both nervious and excited to participate in this amazing experiment.  Our 300-seat-theater was full!, That day the main newspaper in Caracas put up the story on it's front page!

The audience was very moved by the story, tears were jerkyng all over when we read Dennis Shepard's words at the bench dedication (well, actually the actor didn't read he lines, that was the only moment when he stood up and delivered those powerful lines straight to the audience) - we had an amazing response also at the interviews with Mckinney and Henderson-

Before the reading, Jonathan Mateus a leader of "Venezuela Diversa" an NGO that works for  GLBT's rights -one of our  guest to the performance - shared a story with us that had happened to him just days before. As he was putting up Posters of "Laramie Project TYL" a group of police officers arrived at the bar and began to harass the crowd, suddently they began to beat with clubs a group of gay kids. Jonathan went up to confront the police and found himself to be also the target of their intolerant fury, they beat him up bad and then they arrested him. He spent the night in jail and was abused during the entire ordeal. Jonathan also told us that in 2009, 10 GLBT people in Venezuela have been killed as a result of a hate crime.

We are very happy to have been part of this, and we hope in the near future to have a real production of Laramie or another one of Moises plays!

Best,

Vyana