In October 1998, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severly beaten and left tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. His name was Matthew Shepard and he was the victim of this assault because he way gay. Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half, in the aftermath of the beating and during the trial. They conducted more than two hundred interviews with people connected to the case as well as numerous citizens of Laramie and the breadth of the reactions to the crime is fascinating. The Laramie Project is a deeply moving theatrical experience constructed from their interviews and experiences. It is a breathtaking collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable.
