This play is a reconstruction of a realstory homophobia incident that occurred in the United States. At age 21, Matthew Shepard is beaten up to death by drunk young men just for being gay. The incident caught the attention of the playwright Moisés Kaufman, who conducted over 200 interviews with the residents of Laramie for a year and a half. The interviews were then woven together into a play that exposes the truth behind the incident. The Laramie Project presents an acerbic criticism of homophobia and raises the question of what it means to live in a hate-driven society.