Tectonic Theater Project
On 6 October 1998 Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die tied to a fence in the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. He died 6 days later. His torture and murder became a watershed historical moment in America that highlighted many of the fault lines in our culture.
A month after the murder the members of Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie and conducted interviews with the people of the town. From these interviews they wrote the play "The Laramie Project". The piece has been seen by more than 30 million people around the country.
Matthew Davidson
Matthew won his first electric guitar in the 2007 James Burton Guitar Showdown. He was the youngest of eight student guitarists selected to play with Kenny Wayne Shepherd at his 2009 Artbreak Concert. He has played at the B.B. King Museum and the B.B. King Homecoming Concert in Indianola, MS and the Delta Blues Fest in Greenville, MS, where in addition to his own set, he sat in with Honeyboy Edwards for a few songs. Matthew has played at the Pinetop Perkins Homecoming Celebration and the famous Ground Zero (blues club) in Clarksdale, MS. Matthew performed at the Dallas International Guitar Festival and in the Youth Showcase at the 2011 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN, jamming at the B. B. King Blues Club while he was there. Other venues where Matthew has performed are The Strand Theatre (Shreveport, Louisiana), Temple Theater (Meridian, Mississippi), Music City Texas Theater in Linden, Texas, The Sucarnochee Revue in Livingston, Alabama, Rock 'N' Bowl, The Ellis Marsalis Center in the Musicians' Village and New Orleans Mint in New Orleans, LA and the Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium, home of the famed Louisiana Hayride. In 2013, Matthew was invited to join Kenny Wayne Shepherd on stage at the 59Twenty Music Festival in Meridian, MS.
Matthew was selected out of several hundred applicants to be the guitarist for the 2011 Kidd Kraddick Rock Camp Band. As part of this camp, Matthew had the opportunity to perform live on the air on the nationally syndicated radio show "Kidd Kraddick in the Morning".