Susan Burk joined the Foundation as its first-ever Laramie Project Specialist in June 2011. A former radio and television news anchor and theatre professional, Susan works to lead and strengthen the Foundation’s support system for school and community productions of The Laramie Project, an award-winning play by the Tectonic Theater Project which relates the actual spoken stories of Laramie, Wyoming, residents in response to the 1998 anti-gay hate-crime murder of Matthew Shepard.

In addition to offering support work for production advice, creative collaboration, and historical context for both The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, Susan facilitates audience and cast “talk-back” post-show discussions. She has also taught classes and supported curriculums that utilize the Laramie Project plays as part of their course work. These discussions help make The Laramie Project plays an educational opportunity and a chance to create dialogue for entire schools and communities.

Susan attended the Graduate Acting Program at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago (now The Theatre School at DePaul), and has strong backgrounds in theatre, journalism and Matthew’s story. At the time of Matthew Shepard’s murder, his funeral, and the trials of his killers, she was the Executive Producer/Senior Anchor for the evening news at KTWO Television. Based in Casper, KTWO-TV was the statewide NBC affiliate, and it was Ms. Burk’s primary responsibility to arrange and implement coverage for all of these events, including community reaction and response. She produced a series on the making of The Laramie Project film that won the top news awards from both the Wyoming Associated Press and the Wyoming Association of Broadcasters that year. She is based in Casper, Wyo.