Sam - the writer

Before he was 30 years old, Sam Shepard had over thirty plays produced in New York. In his works, Shepard has repeatedly examined the moral anomie and spiritual starvation that characterize the world of his drama.

But long before Fame came knocking on his door, Shepard arrived in New York at an early age. During those early years, he supported himself working as a busboy while rooming with Charlie Mingus, Jr., a friend of his from high school and son of the famous jazz musician.

Before long, Shepard became very much involved in New York's off-off-Broadway theater scene, beginning at the age of nineteen. His first full-length play, La Turista, was performed at the American Place Theatre and won an Obie in 1967. Although his plays were staged at several off-off-Broadway venues, he was most closely connected with Theatre Genesis, housed at St. Mark's Church in the East Village. He acted occasionally in those days, but his interests were almost strictly confined to writing, up until the late 1970s. Most of his writing was for the stage, but he had early screen-writing credits for Me and My Brother (1968) and Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (1970). His early science-fiction play, The Unseen Hand, influenced Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror Show.

The Tooth of Crime (1972), a rock-drama written during the years he lived in London, tells the story of two rock-stars of different generations who battle for territorial domination of an empire. Their duel to the death is not a gun battle, but a rap session in which each musician uses verbal incantations in order to pierce the mask and shatter the confidence of his opponent. The play was staged in its American premiere at Princeton University in 1972. After three years of living in England, in 1976 Shepard relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and was named playwright in residence at the Magic Theatre where many of his works received their premier productions. Notable work includes Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class in 1978, True West in 1980 and A Lie of the Mind in 1985. He also continued with his collaboration with Bob Dylan that started with the surrealist film Renaldo and Clara on an epic, 11 minute song entitled "Brownsville Girl", included on the 1986 Knocked Out Loaded album and later compilations.

A complete listing of all of Sam's writings can be found here.