Conversations with Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard was a prolific playwright, film actor, director, musician, horseman, and intellectual who won many awards and published eight books of prose and poetry. The interviews in Conversations with Sam Shepard begin in 1969 and end in 2016, eight months before his death from ALS. Shepard discusses the indelibility of family, his respect for stage acting versus film acting, and the importance of music to his work. He also speaks candidly of his youth in California, his early days as a playwright in New York City, his professionally formative time in London, his interests and influences, the mythology of the American Dream, his own plays, and more.

Format: Hardback
Length: 308 pages
Publication date: 15 September 2021
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi

Sam Shepard (1943-2017) was a prolific playwright who wrote fifty-six produced plays, winning numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize. He was also an Oscar-nominated film actor, appearing in scores of films. Shepard published eight books of prose and poetry and was a director, musician, horseman, and plain-spoken intellectual. Despite his private nature, Shepard gave numerous interviews throughout his public life, and those who respected his boundaries found him generous with his time and forthcoming on a wide range of topics.

The selected interviews in Conversations with Sam Shepard span from 1969, when Shepard was twenty-six and already a multiple Obie winner, to 2016, eighteen months before his death from complications of ALS at age seventy-three. Throughout these conversations, themes emerge: the indelibility of family, his admiration for stage acting versus what he perceived as the easier film acting, and the profound importance of music to his work. Shepard also candidly discusses his youth in California, his early days as a playwright in New York City, his professionally formative time in London, his interests and influences, the mythology of the American Dream, his own plays, and much more.

In Conversations with Sam Shepard, Shepard reveals himself through his own words, providing a unique insight into the mind of one of the most influential and enigmatic figures in American theater. These interviews are a treasure trove for theater enthusiasts, literary scholars, and anyone interested in the art of storytelling and the human experience.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781496836601