On October 12, 1998, an openly gay University of Wyoming student, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, was murdered in an act of brutality and hate that shocked America. "The Laramie Project," a stunningly effective ensemble theater piece, investigates not so much the crime itself, or any one person, but rather the ethos of a place. In the tradition of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town, " or of Anna Deveare Smith's "Fires in the Mirror, " the town of Laramie is brought to life as eight actors embody more than 60 different people in their own words -- ranging from ranchers to university professors, from a lesbian waitress to a Baptist minister, from a Muslim feminist to a Roman Catholic priest. The result is a complex and sympathetic portrait of a town that dispels the simplistic myths and stereotypes of the national media, and shows the people of Laramie struggling with the aftermath of a horrific event that made them question their belief that "it can't happen here."