Plays of Tony Kushner Inspire New Continuing Legal Education Event Presented by Guthrie Theater and West LegalEdcenter

“Love, Law and Litigation” live CLE event June 9, on-demand video to follow

EAGAN, Minn. – The dramatic works of playwright Tony Kushner will be the inspiration for Love, Law and Litigation: A Dialog of Bias in American Sexual and Gender Identity, the June 9 continuing legal education event presented in partnership by the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and West LegalEdcenter.

Love, Law and Litigation complements the Guthrie’s landmark theater-wide celebration honoring the plays of Tony Kushner, best-known for his two-part epic, Angels in America. The Guthrie announced today that Kushner – winner of the Pulitzer prize, an Emmy Award and two Tony Awards – will take part in this CLE as a panelist.

“We are thrilled to have him as part of this event,” says Louise Chalfant, Guthrie Theater Director of Education. “He is a visionary writer and a singular public intellectual, an artist who thinks broadly and rigorously about the social issues and psychological material out of which his art is forged.”

Exploring polarized social attitudes related to sexual orientation and gender identity and their effect on law throughout the United States, the June 9 event for attorneys will employ live stage performances by Guthrie actors on-stage, along with discussions of excerpts from Kushner’s plays by a panel of legal professionals. Attorneys around the world can also access the Love, Law and Litigation event at West LegalEdcenter as a live webcast and then as an on-demand video.

The core question explored by the Love, Law and Litigation event: What is it about how we live and love, and how we see ourselves, that creates such deep legal, social and political divides?

“Few other social issues remain as polarizing as sexual orientation and gender identity,” says Lee Ann Enquist, vice president, West Professional Development. “This course will use the plays of Tony Kushner such as Caroline, or Change and Angels in America, along with first-hand accounts of individuals’ experiences with competing legal, social and political forces, to comment upon the effect they are having on state and federal jurisprudence.”

This June 9, 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. CST event builds upon other collaborations between the Guthrie Theatre and West, including CLE events that utilized William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice to explore bias, Jeffrey Hatcher’s The Government Inspector to provide insight into corruption, and the late Wendy Wasserstein’s play Third to explore discrimination against women. This arrangement for continuing legal education is the first of its kind in the world, joining a major professional theatre and a CLE provider in creating original content for attorney’s training and development.

Registration Information: To enroll in either the live CLE event at the Guthrie Theater or the live webcast on June 9, visit www.westlegaledcenter.com, search by program name and continue through the checkout process. The course, which costs $200, provides 2.0 credits toward the Elimination of Bias requirements in Minnesota, California and Oregon. It provides 2.0 or greater CLE credits toward the Ethics requirements of most other jurisdictions. CPD credit has also been applied for in the United Kingdom.

About The Guthrie Theater
The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is an American center for theater performance, production, education and professional training. The Guthrie is dedicated to producing the great works of dramatic literature, developing the work of contemporary playwrights and cultivating the next generation of theater artists. Led by Director Joe Dowling since 1995, the Guthrie is located at 818 South Second Street (at Chicago Avenue) in downtown Minneapolis. For more information, visit www.guthrietheater.org.

About West LegalEdcenter
West LegalEdcenter is a West business, part of Thomson Reuters. The West LegalEdcenter library contains more than 17,000 hours of continuing legal education, spanning all learning levels and covering every practice area. In addition, attorneys may earn CLE credits by attending live events and watching Webcasts live produced by West LegalEdcenter. Up-to-the-minute programming keeps pace with rapid changes in the law, and with easy, online access, attorneys can view programming on the Web wherever they are – from home, from the office or while traveling. For more information about West LegalEdcenter, visit www.westlegaledcenter.com.

About West
Headquartered in Eagan, Minn., West is the foremost provider of integrated information solutions, software and services to the U.S. legal market. West is a business within Thomson Reuters. For more information, please visit the West Web site at www.west.thomson.com