On October 6, 1998 Matthew Shepard was tied to a fence, beaten and left to die alone in wooded area on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming.

A month after his murder, members of Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie and conducted interviews with the people of the town, which were used to create "The Laramie Project."

On Oct. 12, the Tectonic Theater Project in conjunction with Temple will premiere an epilogue to the original work titled The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later.

The piece focuses on how Shepard’s murder continues to affect members of the Laramie community and includes new interviews with Shepard’s mother, Judy, and his murderer Aaron McKinney, who is currently serving two consecutive life sentences.

Directed by Edward Sobel, assistant professor of Theater, Temple’s staging of the play will coincide with presentations at 100 theatres across the U.S. and internationally.  Temple Theaters’ showing will be the only presentation in Philadelphia.

The multi-media production includes an online interactive community where participants can blog, upload video and photos and share their stories about the play and their experiences in preparing and presenting the Epilogue in their communities.

“The cast and I feel privileged to represent Temple in the national dialogue around this ambitious and important project,” said Sobel. “Like the original Laramie Project, the Epilogue examines Laramie, Wyoming as a microcosm of the country as a whole. The play is chiefly concerned with the ways in which tragic events are incorporated into our individual psychology and social fabric. It investigates, in deeply human and compassionate terms, how we construct a story of ourselves that acknowledges both the best and worst parts of our nature.”

Information about tickets to all other events can be found online at www.LaramieProject.org.