The Laramie Project

In October 1998, Matthew Shephard, a college student at the U of Wyoming was kidnapped, beaten, tied to a fence and left to die. His crime? Being gay. Kaufman, Fondakowski and members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half. They conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town. The breadth of the reactions to the crime is fascinating. Tectonic has constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience from these interviews and their own experiences in Laramie. This play is a breathtaking collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable. We see a town caught in the cross-hairs of a hate crime and media frenzy.