Matthew Shephard 10 years later

As the ten year anniversary of the brutal attack and subsequent murder of Laramie, Wyoming's Matthew Shepard approaches - October 12, 2008 - Moisés Kaufman, the founder of the Tectonic Theatre Company which brought "The Laramie Project" to life, decided to return to this town of almost 30 thousand people in the southeast corner of Wyoming to see what, if anything, had changed. (After a brief stop at "The Fireside" on the night of October 7, 2008, Matthew was offered a ride by two men then taken to a fence post, tied up, pistol whipped and left to freeze to death in 18 degree weather. He entered a coma and died five days later. The two men, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney are both serving life in prison.) What Kaufman found was a town "exhausted" by these horrific events and the ability to cope with such a profound act and in with such continuity. "A lot of people in the community went through a sense of grief, in a very poignant, heartfelt, painful way, and I think eventually the pain became so great that they don’t want to think about it or hear about it,” says Rebecca Hilliker, a professor of theatre at the University of Wyoming. Kaufman plans to amend The Project to include his findings. I sure Matthew's family and friends would disagree with Ms. Hilliker's armchair analysis of the situation. Kaufman, who had presumably hoped to find a more enlightened Laramie, noted dolefully, "I guess what disappoints me isn’t so much Laramie, it’s the fact that more social progress hasn’t happened everywhere.” The full article can be read here.