What happens to an American town when something unexpected, unconscionable and unforgivable rips it apart and thrusts it into the national media spotlight? That is the question that led a New York City theatre troupe to the town of Laramie, Wyoming, to seek out residents whose lives were changed after a gay college student named Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead off a rural road. This groundbreaking HBO Films drama recreates the efforts of the troupe who interviewed the residents of Laramie in an effort to uncover what such a heinous crime meant to the people, their town and their country.