The Laramie Project

Adapted from a collection of real-life interviews, The Laramie Project examines life in the town of Laramie, Wyoming, one year following the horrific murder of a gay college student, Matthew Shepard. “This play is Our Town with a question mark, as in ‘Could this be our town?’ ” (New York Times). Oanh Nguyen directs.

Moisés Kaufman and fellow 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 conducted more than 200 interviews with people of the town. From theses interviews as well as their own experiences, Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater members have constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience. The Laramie Project chronicles the life of the town of Laramie in the year after the murder, using eight actors to embody more than sixty different people in their own words – from rural ranchers to university professors. The result is a complex portrayal that dispels the simplistic media stereotypes and explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable.