Hilary Swank
American actress
Sam Shepard was a renowned American playwright, actor, director, and screenwriter who won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His plays are known for their bleak, poetic, and surreal elements, exploring the darker aspects of American society.
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About the Sam Shepard
Samuel Shepard Rogers IIIwas an American actor, playwright, author, director and screenwriter whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described Shepard as “the greatest American playwright of his generation.”
Shepard’s plays are known for their bleak, poetic, surrealist elements, black comedy, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. His style evolved from the absurdism of his early off-off-Broadway work to the realism of later plays like Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sam Shepard was an acclaimed American playwright, actor, director, and screenwriter who had a prolific career spanning over half a century. He was known for his poetic, surrealist plays that often explored the darker themes of American life.
Sam Shepard won 10 Obie Awards for his writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. He also received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film The Right Stuff.
Sam Shepard wrote 58 plays, as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, showcasing his versatility as a writer.
Shepard’s plays were known for their bleak, poetic, and surrealist elements, as well as their use of black comedy and rootless characters living on the fringes of American society. His style evolved from the absurdism of his early work to the realism of later plays like Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class.
According to New York magazine, Sam Shepard was ,the greatest American playwright of his generation,, further cementing his legacy as a highly influential and acclaimed writer.
Sam Shepard was born on November 5, 1943, and passed away on July 27, 2017, at the age of 73.
7 Quotes by Sam Shepard
- 1.
I didn’t go out of my way to get into this movie stuff. I think of myself as a writer.
Sam ShepardAmerican playwright and actor (1943-2017)
- 2.
Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play.
Sam ShepardAmerican playwright and actor (1943-2017)
- 3.
Sides are being divided now. It’s very obvious. So if you’re on the other side of the fence, you’re suddenly anti-American. It’s breeding fear of being on the wrong side.
Sam ShepardAmerican playwright and actor (1943-2017)
- 4.
You can’t make a living as a playwright. You can barely scrape by.
Sam ShepardAmerican playwright and actor (1943-2017)
- 5.
I’m a writer. The more I act, the more resistance I have to it. If you accept work in a movie, you accept to be entrapped for a certain part of time, but you know you’re getting out. I’m also earning enough to keep my horses, buying some time to write.
Sam ShepardAmerican playwright and actor (1943-2017)
- 6.
Democracy’s a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it’s no longer democracy, is it? It’s something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.
Sam ShepardAmerican playwright and actor (1943-2017)
- 7.
I feel like I’ve never had a home, you know? I feel related to the country, to this country, and yet I don’t know exactly where I fit in… There’s always this kind of nostalgia for a place, a place where you can reckon with yourself.
Sam ShepardAmerican playwright and actor (1943-2017)