The play is about the brutal death of Matthew Shepard and the trials of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. Aaron and Russell severely beat Matthew and left him to die because Matthew was gay and they didn’t agree with his lifestyle choices. The climax of the play was the brutal beating of Matthew, and being left in the hills to die for 18 hours before being found and taken to the hospital for treatment. After several days of being in the hospital, he met his eternal fate and passed away in October of 1998. The result of Matthew’s beating was the arrest and trial of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. Both of whom were found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison because of the forgiveness from Matthew’s family who were against the idea of the death penalty, even though that was the sentencing of their son. In 1998, Laramie, Wyoming was an up and coming town close to the border of Colorado. While not having a huge tourism base, it was a college town. There was not much interest in the fashion world, outside of the college students, as most of the residents were “cow folk.” It was not a very rich town, it was a town of simplicity-where money wasn’t everything, and people did what they needed to do for it. There were not many options for careers, outside of farming. “I lived in Wyoming my whole life. The family has been in Wyoming wellfor generations. Now when it came time to go to college, my parent’s can’t-couldn’t afford to send me off to college.” (Kaufman) The writer of the play Laramie Project is an openly gay male by the name of Moises Kaufman. Kaufman was born on November 21, 1963 to and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. He attended University Metropolitana until 1985, where he received a B.A. in business administration. He then moved to New York in 1987 to attend the Tisch School of Arts at New York University. At NYU, Kaufman studied theatre directing. After graduating NYU, Kaufman started his playwriting. In the early 1990’s, Kaufman and his partner Jeffrey LaHoste, founded the Tectonic Theater Project, a company providing a collaborative network of artists who are interested in telling stories about reality. In 2001, Kaufman wrote The Laramie Project. Kaufman is well known for “perceptive and moving plays often ro