Eleven years have gone by since college student Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, brutally beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyo.

Targeted because he was gay, his murder brought attention to hate-crime legislation, and it also shed an unfavorable light on the otherwise quiet Wyoming town.

Five weeks after Shepard's death, playwright Moises Kaufman and other members of the Tectonic Theatre Project went to Laramie, conducted interviews over the course of a year and wrote "The Laramie Project," a chronicle of the town in the year after the murder — one of the most-performed plays in America today.

Ten years later, Kaufman and his colleagues returned to Laramie, conducted more interviews and over the course of a year wrote "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, Epilogue."

To mark the anniversary of Shepard's death, the new work, in an unprecedented move, will premiere in 140 theaters in all 50 U.S. states, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, Hong Kong and Australia.

"When you talk about a decade, you expect some sort of change has happened, that some sort of clarity has come," said Jerry Rapier, producing director of Plan-B Theatre Company, one of the first companies in the country to perform the first the first play.

" 'Epilogue' is an exploration of that possibility."

In conjunction with Kingsbury Hall, Plan-B will present a staged reading of the new work. The six-person cast is made up of local actors who participated in the original production 10 years ago.

"It's been like a homecoming," he said. "You don't find anyone who has worked on this show before who has not found it to be a pretty transcendent experience," Rapier added. "It's more than just a play."

The playwrights began their research on the 10th anniversary of Shepard's death and have spent the past year conducting interviews.

"Some of the interviews were conducted just this past summer," Rapier said.

Having a 10-year separation allowed Kaufman access to things that weren't possible for the first play, including interviews with Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, the two men responsible for Shepard's death.

Shepard's mother, Judy, was also interviewed.

"She wasn't a character in the first play but wasn't actually interviewed," Rapier said. "It took her eight years before she could even see the first 'Laramie Project.' "

In order to accommodate the University of Utah's fall break, the production will be performed Oct. 9, a few days before the rest of the country, which will see the premiere of the new script on Oct. 12, the actual date of Shepard's death.

"We wanted as many students as possible to be able to see it," Rapier said.

"The play is really about a community, and what it takes to heal when something happens that impacts an entire community," Rapier said, "and it doesn't take much to find yourself inside something like that, even if you don't have a direct connection to the subject."

If you go:

What: "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, Epilogue," Plan-B Theatre Company

Where: Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah

When: Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m.

How Much: $24.50-$29.50

Phone: 801-581-7100

Web: www.kingtix.com

e-mail: ehansen@desnews.com