This spring, Lick-Wilmerding High School planned a production of The Laramie Project, a powerful play, based on a series of interviews conducted by the Tectonic Theater Project with people in Laramie, Wyoming in the aftermath of the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Students from the psychology class, Brain & Behavior, researched a wide range of themes and psychological ramifications of the play, in support of the actors, the team working on the production, and the school community as a whole, and turned their research into a shared web page as an informational guide. These themes are presented in the subpages to this home page, listed on the side bar.

• Laramie is a small town of 32,470 in Southern Wyoming

• 88.96% White

• Median Age of 25.7 (Median age of U.S. population is 38.2)

• Median household income of $44,186

• Poverty rate of 25.85% (Over double the national rate)

March 1995 - Scott Amedure was murdered by Jonathan Schmitz after revealing his attraction to Schmitz.

December 1995 - A man kidnapped and killed Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, a lesbian couple. He later admitted to killing the women out of hate for gay people.

February 1997 - A lesbian nightclub in Atlanta was bombed, injuring five.

December 1997 - Ali Forney was shot and killed, marking the third transgender prostitute murdered in Harlem over the span of a year.