On Friday, February 8 at 8:00 pm, Reader’s Theatre of the SLO Little Theatre will present a staged reading of Lou Shaw’s play, Worse than Murder.

The play revisits the events surrounding 1951 trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were found guilty of and executed for passing information on the American nuclear bomb to the Soviet Union. In this play the controversial case is relived through the eyes of Rosenberg’s two now-adult sons. It is a story of love, family, espionage, betrayal, politics and a government over-reaching its boundaries.

The playwright Lou Shaw is an award-winning TV film writer, producer and the co-creator of “Quincy”. Shaw produced “McCloud,” “The Fall Guy” in addition to developing “Beyond Westworld.” He has scripted over 200 film and television scripts for shows that include among others, “Columbo”, “All in the Family”, “Mission Impossible”, “Ironside”, “Mannix”,and “I Love Lucy”. In 1978 he won an Edgar Allen Poe Edgar award for one of his teleplays for “Quincy M.E.” Shaw has also written a novel, Honor Thy Son.

Shaw, who spent years researching the Rosenberg case, will host a question and answer session following the reading.

Information regarding the “Rosenberg Fund for Children” will be available. The fund, developed by Robby Meeropol, youngest son of the Rosenbergs, is a non profit organization that provides educational and emotional assistance to children whose parents have been targeted for their progressive activities.