The Rockford College  Performing Arts department presents The Laramie Project  in Cheek Theatre in the Clark Arts Center, on the Rockford College campus, on Thursday, Feb. 14, Friday, Feb. 15, Saturday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 17, at 2 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for students and seniors. For tickets or more information, please call the Rockford College Box Office at 815-226-4100. Cheek Theatre is accessible.

In October 1998 a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severely beaten and left to die, tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. His bloody, bruised and battered body was not discovered until the next day, and he died several days later in an area hospital. His name was Matthew Shepard, and he was the victim of this assault because he was gay. Moisés Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half in the aftermath of the beating and during the trial of the two young men accused of killing Shepard. They conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town. Some people interviewed were directly connected to the case, and others were citizens of Laramie, and the breadth of their reactions to the crime is fascinating. Kaufman and Tectonic Theater members have constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience from these interviews and their own experiences. THE LARAMIE PROJECT is a breathtaking theatrical collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink, and the heights of compassion we are also capable of.