S.D. Mayor to Join Laramie Cast

San Diego's Republican mayor Jerry Sanders, who endorsed marriage equality in support of his lesbian daughter in 2007, will join the cast of the San Diego reading of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, to be performed October 12 at La Jolla Playhouse.

The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, by the Tectonic Theater Project, explores the long-term impact of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay college student, on the small town of Laramie, Wyo. This epilogue to the original play The Laramie Project will be read in more than 100 theaters across the country on October 12.

In San Diego, according to a press release from La Jolla Playhouse, "the reading will be helmed by acclaimed director Darko Tresnjak. In addition to the mayor, the cast includes Doug Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winner and adapter/director of the Playhouse's upcoming production of Creditors, San Diego Rep Artistic Director Sam Woodhouse, as well as the acclaimed actors Mare Winningham, Robert Foxworth, Amanda Naughton, James Newcomb, Stark Sands, T. Ryder Smith, James Sutorius, among many others."

Mayor Sanders reversed his opposition to marriage equality in 2007 during a press conference in which he also revealed that his daughter Lisa is a lesbian. He announced in March that she was engaged to her partner, Meaghan Yaple.