Tectonic Theater Project
On 6 October 1998 Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die tied to a fence in the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. He died 6 days later. His torture and murder became a watershed historical moment in America that highlighted many of the fault lines in our culture.
A month after the murder the members of Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie and conducted interviews with the people of the town. From these interviews they wrote the play "The Laramie Project". The piece has been seen by more than 30 million people around the country.
Matthew Shiffner
Matthew Shiffner (c. 1690 - December 1756) was a Russian-born merchant, of German Baltic origins. He became a naturalised British citizen in 1711, before exploiting family connections to rise to prominence as a leading merchant in Russia; his links with the Russian Company allowed for him to become a major exporter of Russian goods to Britain in the 1730s. As favour at the imperial court changed from 1740, he moved over to London, where he ran his affairs from offices on Broad Street until his death.