The Laramie Project
What happens to an American town when something unexpected, unconscionable and unforgivable rips it apart and thrusts it into the national media spotlight? That is the question that led a New York City theatre troupe to the town of Laramie, Wyoming, to seek out residents whose lives were changed after a gay college student named Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead off a rural road. This groundbreaking HBO Films drama recreates the efforts of the troupe who interviewed the residents of Laramie in an effort to uncover what such a heinous crime meant to the people, their town and their country.