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Arts & Entertainment

The Laramie Project

What makes people hate? Whether it’s taught by society, innate, or a combination of both- people all over the world fall victim to hate every day. In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Laramie, Wyoming, was tied to a fence, brutally beaten, and left to die. As the media quickly descended on this small town, the citizens began to question the validity of Laramie’s motto “Live and Let Live.” Over the next two years, Moisés Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theatre Company conducted over 200 interviews with the people of the town. The Laramie Project is compiled of edited interviews expressing a wide variety of opinions of Matthew’s lifestyle, the crime itself, the punishment of the perpetrators, and how the town was affected after all was said and done. This show not only holds a mirror up to Laramie and Wyoming but to our entire nation, and indeed, ourselves.

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