“Laramie is a community, not a ‘project,'” declares a biting editorial published in the Laramie Boomerang on October 12, 2008 — the tenth anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death.

It goes on to say, “… it is infuriating for those of us who consider this our home to be labeled because of the actions of a few questionable characters.”

This editorial, which echoed the sentiments of many, though not all, Laramie residents at the time, served as a pointed response to the widely-produced play The Laramie Project, which members of the NYC-based Tectonic Theatre Project developed after interviewing residents of Laramie, Wyoming a few weeks after Matthew’s death in 1998.

And it’s this kind of defensive, passionate response that makes The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, a follow-up piece by the theatre company, such a completely compelling study on how a close-knit community attempts to make sense of such an earth-shattering event.

Read the rest of my review on The Huffington Post >>