Event

The Laramie Project

In October 1998, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severely beaten, and left tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. His bloody, bruised, and battered body was not discovered until the next day, and he died several days later in an area hospital. His name was Matthew Shepard, and he was the victim of this assault because he was gay. In the aftermath of the beating and during the trial of the two young men accused of killing Matthew, the members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half and conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town. The breadth of the reactions to the crime is fascinating, making The Laramie Project a breathtaking collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable.