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Sam Shepard

SAM SHEPARD

  (1943 - )
Nationality:    USA
facebook     email:    n/a     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    ICM Partners  

Sam Shepard had his first New York plays, COWBOYS and THE ROCK GARDEN, produced by Theatre Genesis in 1963. For several seasons, he worked with Off-Off-Broadway theatre groups including La MaMa and Caffe Cino. Eleven of his plays have won Obie Awards including CHICAGO and ICARUS's MOTHEr (1965); RED CROSS and LA TURISTA (1966); FORENSIC AND THE NAVIGATORS and MELODRAMA PLAY (1967); THE TOOTH OF CRIME (1972); ACTION (1974); and CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS (1976). Shepard was awarded a Pulitzer Prize as well as an Obie Award for his play BURIED CHILD (1979). FOOL FOR LOVE (1982) received the Obie for Best Play as well as for Direction. A LIE OF THE MIND (1985) won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1986 and the 1986 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Play. A revived BURIED CHILD under the direction of Gary Sinise opened on Broadway in April 1996 and was nominated for a Tony Award. KICKING A DEAD HORSE (2007) and AGES OF THE MOON (2009) both received their world premieres at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. KICKING A DEAD HORSE transferred to The Public Theater in New York and to the Almeida Theatre in London, and AGES OF THE MOON received its US premiere at Atlantic Theater Company in 2010. Shepard's latest play, HEARTLESS, premiered in 2012 at Signature. Shepard wrote the screenplays for Zabriskie Point; Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas; and Robert Altman's Fool for Love, a film version of his play of the same title. As writer/director, he filmed Far North and Silent Tongue in 1988 and 1992 respectively. As an actor he has appeared in the films Days of Heaven, Resurrection, Raggedy Man, The Right Stuff, Frances, Country, Fool for Love, Crimes of the Heart, Baby Boom, Steel Magnolias, Bright Angel, Defenseless, Voyager, Thunderheart, The Pelican Brief, Safe Passage, Hamlet and, most recently, Don't Come Knocking, also co-written with Wim Wenders. In 1986, Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1992, he received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and in 1994, he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.

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below is a list of Sam Shepard's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         4-H Club         Action         Ages of the Moon         Angel City         Back Bog Beast Bait         Blue Bitch         Buried Child         Chicago         Cowboy Mouth         Cowboys         Cowboys 2         Curse of the Starving Class         Dog         Eyes For Consuela         Far North         Fool For Love         Forensic and the Navigators         Fourteen Hundred Thousand         Geography of a Horse Dreamer         God Of Hell, The         Hawk Moon         Heartless         Holy Ghostly, The         Icarus's Mother         Inacoma         Jacaranda         Jackson's Dance         Kicking A Dead Horse         Killer's Head         Late Henry Moss, The         Lie of the Mind, A         Little Ocean         Mad Dog Blues         MeloDrama Play         Nightwalk         Oh! Calcutta!         Operation Sidewinder         Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations), A         Peer Gynt         Pure Accident         Red Cross         Rock Garden, The         Rocking Chair         Sad Lament of Pecos Bill On the Fve Of Killing His Wife, The         Savage/Love         Seduced         Shaved Splits         Shepardsets         Silent Tongue         Simpatico         States of Shock         Suicide in B Flat         Superstitions         Tongues         Tooth of Crime, The         True West         Turista, La         Unseen Hand, The         Up To Thursday         War In Heaven, The         When the World Was Green
4-H Club

4-H Club
three young men in a trash filled apartment, with occasional outbreaks of violence and shouting

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1965

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Unseen Hand and Other Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1971   

Music:
-

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Action

Synopsis:
two shaven headed couples sit around a wooden table and wait for and finally consume a real roasted turkey, motiveless and puposefuless like a chimpanzee's tea party

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1975

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London, 1975   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Four Short Plays One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Ages of the Moon

Synopsis:
A gruff, affecting and funny play by Sam Shepard. Byron and Ames are old friends, reunited by mutual desperation. Over bourbon on ice, they sit, reflect and bicker until fifty years of love, friendship and rivalry are put to the test at the barrel of a gun.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Peacock, Abbey Theatre, Dublin     03 Mar 2009

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, Inc. NY (2015)   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Angel City

Angel City
Los Angeles and a young magician and fixer is summoned to work a 'slight miracle' on a disaster movie

Notes:
music by Bob Feldman

1st Produced:
San Francisco     1976

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Angel City and Other Plays", Urizen, New York, 1976   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play with Music

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Back Bog Beast Bait

Back Bog Beast Bait
two cowboys are hired by woman to fight a monster ravaging the Louisiana countryside

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1971

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Unseen Hand and Other Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1971   

Music:
-

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Genre:
with music One Act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Blue Bitch

Synopsis:
phone rings as someone in Scotland wants to buy to American expatriates greyhound, milkman solves all the problems as a singing telegram arrives

Notes:
televised 1972

1st Produced:
New York     1973

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Short Play One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Buried Child

Synopsis:
the setting is a squalid farm home occupied by a family filled with suppressed violence and an unease born of deep-seated unhappiness. the characters are a ranting alcoholic grandfather; a sanctimonious grandmother who goes on drinking bouts with the local minister; and their sons, Tilden, an All-American footballer now a hulking semi-idiot; and Bradley, who has lost one leg to a chain saw. Into their midst comes Vince, a grandson none of them recognizes or remembers, and his girlfriend, Shelly, who cannot comprehend the madness to which she is suddenly introduced. the family harbors a dark secret-years earlier the grandfather, Dodge, had buried an unwanted newborn baby in an undisclosed spot, creating a cloud of guilt which is dispelled only when Tilden unearths the child's mummified remains and carries it upstairs to his mother. His act purges the family, at last, of its infamy and suggests the perhaps slim possibility of a new beginning under Vince, whose estrangement from the others has spared him the taint of their sin.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
San Francisco     1978

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Buried Child and Other Plays", Faber, London, 1980   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Tragedy

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Chicago

Synopsis:
a comedy about a young man in a bathtub

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1965

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Five Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1967   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Cowboy Mouth

Synopsis:
Cavale and Slim live together. Slim veers from blaming Cavale for the mess his life is in to begging to hear stories about French poets

Notes:
Written by Patti Smith And Sam Shepard

1st Produced:
Edinburgh     1971

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Mad Dog Blues and Other Plays", Winter House, New York, 1971   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Cowboys

Synopsis:
two young men in an unidentified space act out their various fantasies until finally turning on the audience

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1964

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Cowboys 2

Synopsis:
two young men sit and talk about whether it is likely to rain

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1967

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Mad Dog Blues and Other Plays", Winter House, New York, 1971   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Curse of the Starving Class

Curse of the Starving Class
the setting is a farmhouse somewhere in the American West, inhabited by a family who have enough to eat, but not enough more to satisfy the other hungers that bedevil them. the Father is a drunk; the mother a frowzy slattern; the daughter precocious beyond her years; and the son a deranged idealist who wants something better but has no clear idea of how to attain it. the action is filled with changes and counter-changes as the family decides to sell the house to raise money; the mother talks of running off to Europe or Mexico, but ends up asleep on the kitchen table; the Father sobers up and tries to take control; the daughter is blown up in the family car; and the son is brutalized and bloodied by the evil forces besetting them. In the end of the play its people become a metaphor for the underside of American life-the benighted innocents forever pursuing a diminished dream, and the illusion of fulfillment which remains ever beyond their reach.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
London     1977

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Angel City and Other Plays", Urizen, New York, 1976   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Dog

Synopsis:
about a black guy on a park bench

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Eyes For Consuela

Synopsis:
A disheveled man wakes from a sweat-drenching nightmare, furiously shaking his shirt and pants free of possible small jungle creatures, and hastily dresses to face the utterly dreamlike reality of remote Mexico, a torpid limbo. Henry is a lost soul from the American middle-class, middle aged and unmoored, a superfluous stranger to a wife he left hundreds of scattered miles away in snowbound Michigan, and now alone in a squalid, vine-shrouded "hotel" amid snakes, lizards and ghosts. the owner of the makeshift inn, one-eyed Viejo, warns him to stay put for his own safety, but on a brief, circular walk through the underbrush he is set upon by a peasant named Amado. the predatory figure bears a machete and a slender knife which he will use to cut the eyes from Henry's head, he tells the incredulous American, in order to present this penitent, macabre offering of "a bouquet of blue eyes" to the bewitching Consuela. the fervor of Amado's obsessed mission, his dizzying persuasiveness, and his menacing wit and insight, push Henry's sanity to its limits. In a duel of ironic pathos, humor, cruelty and metaphor, each man examines what has taken him from the woman he loves and what desperate sacrificial price might reunite him with her. At the point when the gracefully haunting Consuela appears before Henry only to dismiss his brown eyes, the sole road out of the tangled tropical forest seems indistinct but at last possible.

Notes:
Based on the Blue Bouquet by Octavio Paz.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Far North

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Film Script Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Fool For Love

Synopsis:
the scene is a stark motel room at the edge of the Mojave Desert. May, a disheveled young woman, sits dejectedly on a rumpled bed while Eddie, a rough-spoken rodeo performer, crouches in a corner fiddling with his riding gear. When he attempts to console May, who is distressed by Eddie's frequent absences and love affairs, she seems, at first, to soften-but then she suddenly attacks him. As the recriminations pour out, and the action becomes, at times, physically violent, the desperate nature of their relationship becomes apparent-they cannot get along with, or without, one another, yet neither can subdue their burning passion. the poignancy of their situation (they are half-brother and half-sister as well as lovers) is pointed out by the play's two other characters: a hapless young man who stops by to take May to the movies and becomes the butt of Eddie's funniest yet most humiliating jokes; and a ghostly old man (perhaps their father) who sits in a rocking chair at the side of the stage, sipping whiskey and commenting wryly on what he observes. Eventually May and Eddie tire of their struggle and embrace-but it is evident that the respite is temporary and that their love, the curse of the past which haunts them, will remain forever damned and hopeless.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
San Francisco     1983

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
City Lights, San Francisco, 1983   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy Drama Comedy

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Forensic and the Navigators

Forensic and the Navigators
confused struggle between two revolutionaries and the Fxterminators, who are agents for an unnamed power holding people in a nearby prison camp

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1967

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Unseen Hand and Other Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1971   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Fourteen Hundred Thousand

Synopsis:
two people are building a bookcase for her fourteen hundred thousand books, assisted and watched by three others

Notes:
National Education Television filmed THREE PLAYS FROM LA MAMA. they were PAVANE by Jean Claude Van Itallie, FOURTEEN HUNDRED Thousand by Sam Shepard, And the RECLUSE by Paul Foster. Tom O'Horgan directed the entire program.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Five Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1967   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Geography of a Horse Dreamer

Synopsis:
though rescued by his brothers a Wyoming cowboy, pure at heart but destroyed in spirit, cannot recapture the world he has lost

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
London     1974

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Grove Press, New York, 1974   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Mystery Play Mystery

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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God Of Hell, The

Synopsis:
An uproarious, brilliantly provocative farce that brings the gifts of a quintessentially American playwright to bear on the current American dilEmma. Frank and Emma are a quiet, respectable couple who raise cows on their Wisconsin farm. Soon after they agree to put up Frank's old friend Haynes, who is on the lam from a secret government project involving plutonium, they're visited by Welch, an unctuous government bureaucrat from hell. His aggressive patriotism puts Frank, Emma and Haynes on the defensive, transforming a heartland American household into a scene of torture and promoting a radioactive brand of conformity with a dangerously low half life.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Actors Studio Drama School Theater, NYC     2004

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatist Play Service, NY

Methuen Drama, London   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Booksellers:

Genre:
Dark Comedy, 70 min Comedy

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Hawk Moon

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
London     1989

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Heartless

Synopsis:
Sally lives with her mysterious family in a cavernous home overlooking Los Angeles. When a visitor arrives, Sally's dark secrets - and the secrets of those around her - threaten to come into the light.
- nytheatre.com

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, NY     07 Aug 2012

Organisations:
Signature Theatre

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, Inc. NY (2015)   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Holy Ghostly, The

Holy Ghostly, The
in an effort to catch the ghostly Chindi Ice comes to New York to camp out with his Father whom he shoots after endless arguments

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Unseen Hand and Other Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1971   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Icarus's Mother

Synopsis:
five young people after finishing a 4th July barbecue watch a plane flying overhead and eventually crash

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1965

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Five Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1967   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Inacoma

Synopsis:
woman in a coma and its effects on those around her

Notes:
based on Karen Ann Quinian case

1st Produced:
San Francisco     1977

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play with Music

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Jacaranda

Synopsis:
a man wakes up in his lover's 'rather extravagant' bed. She's not there

Notes:
dance by Daniel Nagrin

1st Produced:
New York     1979

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
text for dance Dance Play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Jackson's Dance

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
written with Jaques Levy

1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut     1980

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Kicking A Dead Horse

Synopsis:
New York art dealer Hobart Struther goes on a desert walkabout to rediscover his "authenticity" and is stranded when his horse dies. And there it is, in the middle of the stage: a life-sized dead horse. As Hobart repeatedly tries and fails to tip it into a too-small grave while telling his story, one is reminded of Beckett's love for Buster Keaton: Rea brilliantly mixes antic behaviour and deadpan delivery with this Sisyphean shtick. However, the key writer Shepard is glossing is himself. Hobart made his fortune reselling paintings of the American west at a massive markup. "What I couldn't see was how those old masterpieces would become like demons, trapping me in a life I wasn't meant for," he says. This and other references make it clear that Shepard is nodding to his own career, seeming to want to renounce his past creative patterns by sending them up. But by invoking all his familiar themes - the west, dreams of escape, tourism, violence, authenticity - Shepard re-inscribes them even as he claims to disavow them.
- Karen Fricker, Guardian

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London, 2008   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

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Killer's Head

Synopsis:
thoughts on nurturing a racehorse made horrifying by the fact that it represents the last thoughts of a young man about to be electrocuted

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1975

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London, 1975   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Monologue Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Late Henry Moss, The

Synopsis:
Two antagonistic brothers, Ray and Earl, are brought together after their father, Henry Moss, is found dead in his seedy New Mexico home. Henry was a harassing, arrogant drunk, and his sons have inherited his worst qualities. Ray is determined to uncover the mysterious circumstances of Henry's death. In three acts, the story of the father's last days unfolds in flashbacks

Notes:
Dramatist Play Service, NY

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatist Play Service, NY
Methuen Drama    

Music:
-

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Genre:
full length Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Lie of the Mind, A

Synopsis:
Involves two desparate families connected by the marriage of the son of one (Jake) to the daughter of the other (Beth). As the play begins Beth, brain-damaged from a savage beating that Jake has given her, is being tended by her parents, Baylor and Meg. Jake sends his brother, Frankie, to Montana to see if she is dead or alive, but Beth's father, mistaking Frankie for a poacher, shoots him in the leg and takes him prisoner. thereafter the tensions and enmities that motivate the two families grow increasingly disturbing and dangerous. Frankie falls in love with Beth, but her brother, Mike, is bitterly determined that she no longer have anything to do with her husband or his loathsome family. Meanwhile the distraught, hystErical Jake, back home in California, is nursed by his possessive mother, Lorraine, and his sister, Sally, to whom Lorraine is openly hostile. Having gotten Jake back from Beth, Lorraine is determined to keep him with her forever, but Jake soon recovers and sets out to regain his wife. In the end, however, his will fails, and he allows Beth to stay with Frankie; Lorraine burns down her house and departs for Ireland with Sally; and Jake, bereft and alone, seeks communication with his dead Father by gently dispersing his ashes into the moonlight-hoping to find order and meaning in the present by coming to terms with the haunting spectres of the past.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Promenade Theatre, New York     1985

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
New American Library, New York

Methuen Drama, London   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Love Ballad Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Little Ocean

Synopsis:
three girls - one who has had a child, one who is pregnant, and one who never has been - look at pregnancy from a women's point of view

Notes:
no further publications or performances

1st Produced:
London     1974

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Mad Dog Blues

Synopsis:
images of Marlene Dietrich and Mae west as country boy and city slicker set off for an adventure

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1971

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Mad Dog Blues and Other Plays", Winter House, New York, 1971   

Music:
-

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Genre:
two act adventure show with music One Act

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  3            Other:  musicians

Further Reference:
-

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MeloDrama Play

Synopsis:
manager harasses singer song writer and his brother to try to force a follow up to their one big song

Notes:
written by Leonard Melfi And Sam Shepard

1st Produced:

Organisations:
La MaMa Troupe

1st Published:
in "Five Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1967   

Music:
-

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Genre:
meloDrama with music One Act

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Nightwalk

Synopsis:
God is indicted for his absence and the consequent sense of absurdity is compounded by the materialism and sexual role playing of society

Notes:
written with Megan Terry And Jean-Claude van Itallie

1st Produced:
New York     1973

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Open theater", Drama Book specialists, New York, 1975   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Collaboration Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Oh! Calcutta!

Oh! Calcutta!
Oh! Calcutta! was a long-running avant-garde theatrical revue, created by British Drama critic Kenneth Tynan. the show, consisting of various sketches on sex-related topics, debuted in Off-Broadway in 1969. It proved, once again, that sex sells, running in London for over 2,400 performances, and in New York for over 1,600. the show sparked considerable controversy at the time, because it featured extended scenes of total nudity, both male and female. the title is taken from a painting by Clovis Trouille, itself a pun on "O quel cul t'as!", French for "What an ass you have!". Tynan had hoped that Harold Pinter would direct the production, in order to give it avant-garde legitimacy, but Pinter declined. (the original director was Jacques Levy, remembered by most now as the songwriting partner of Bob Dylan on his album Desire.) Most of the sketches (written, amongst others, by Nobel prize winner Samuel Beckett, John Lennon, Sam Shepard, Edna O'Brien, Jules Feiffer, and Tynan himself) featured the cast naked (including Bill Macy). Peter Schickele (aka 'PDQ Bach'), Robert Dennis and Stanley Walden were the revue's composers, known as the Open Window. A pay-per-view video production played on closed-circuit TV in select cities in 1971, and in 1972 a motion picture version was also released - in both cases many cities and municipalities banned its showing. A 1976 Broadway revival at the Edison theatre ran for thirteen years, briefly becoming the longest-running play in Broadway history, with a total of 5,959 performances.
- Wikipedia

Notes:
Conceived by Kenneth Tynan; Contributions by Samuel Beckett, Jules Feiffer, Dan Greenburg, John Lennon, Jacques Levy, Leonard Melfi, David Newman, Robert Benton, Sam Shepard, Clovis Trouille, Kenneth Tynan And Sherman Yellen; Music And Lyrics, the Open Window: Robert Dennis, Peter Schickele And Stanley Walden; Musical Director: Norman Bergen

1st Produced:
Eden Theatre, Off Broadway, NY     17 Jun 1969

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Applause Theatre Book Publishers 1988   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Operation Sidewinder

Synopsis:
an advanced computer escapes into the desert where it becomes the heart of a battle between the power crazy military and a group of black revolutionaries

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1970

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
May "Fsquire", New York, 1969   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play with Music

Parts:
Male:  17            Female:  4            Other:  many extras

Further Reference:
-

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Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations), A

Synopsis:
As a young man, Oedipus is told by a seer that he will grow up to kill his own father and marry his mother. He flees from home to avoid this terrible fate, but there is no escapethe dreadful prophecy finally catches up with him. Celebrated playwright Sam Shepard reimagines this Ancient Greek tale as a modern thriller. A murder is committed. Who is the victim? Who is responsible? What are the consequences for generations to come? There are many versions of the crime in this intriguing tale. People are hiding from the truth, even when it stares them in the face.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, Inc. NY (2015)   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Drama/Tragedy

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Peer Gynt

Synopsis:
Peer Gynt sweeps around the world in a fruitless search for power and glory - outwitting wedding guests, trolls and a belly dancing con-woman who are all intent on bringing him down. Eventually this comic rogue is redeemed by the love of a good woman. The last of Ibsen's verse dramas. Irina Brook, daughter of Peter Brook, first read Peer Gynt as a young actress living in New York in the 1980s. In a relationship at the time with Iggy Pop, she imagined Ibsen's eponymous hero as the boisterous rock star. Years later, her vision has been vividly realised in an adaptation featuring creative contributions from the legendary musician as well as new writing from Pulitzer Prize-winning Sam Shepard. Driven by a timeless hunger for fame and wealth, Peer remains a man on a desperate quest for his inner-self. His fantastical journey is wholly updated by this exuberant show rich in contemporary imagery, live music and original poetry.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Henrik Ibsen

1st Produced:
Salzburg Festival, Austria     2012

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Pure Accident

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     2004

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Red Cross

Synopsis:
hypochondria and real bugs in a Red cross Cabin

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1966

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Five Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1967   

Music:
-

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Rock Garden, The

Rock Garden, The
play about son leaving his parents; autobiographical

Notes:
final scene in Oh! Calcutta (New York, 1969)

1st Produced:
New York     1964

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Unseen Hand and Other Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1971   

Music:
-

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  1g 1b

Further Reference:
-

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Rocking Chair

Synopsis:
Ghosts are hellzapoppin in Lee Blessing's self-described new "metaphysical farce," FORTINBRAS, a comic interplay of wry literary criticism and contemporary wit which takes up where William Shakespeare's Hamlet left off. As inescapably relevant to today's political scene as the classic from which it is drawn, FORTINBRAS cannot help but raise questions about authority and leadership, yet with its mocking (and loving) reverence for Shakespeare's vision, Blessing's play comes closer in tone to Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead-sexy, inquisitive, and ultimately satisfying to the revisionist theater-lover. Chosen by Time magazine as one of the year's ten best plays for 1991, calling it "Lee Blessing's splendid musing on the most influential play in the English language. . ." "This comedy serves up a yuppie, postmodern Fortinbras, a bewildered Horatio, a blossoming Osric and lots of tasty ghosts." -LA Times. ". . .only Blessing would possess the nerve and the talent to undertake such a task. . .Where we suffered and

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Sad Lament of Pecos Bill On the Fve Of Killing His Wife, The

Synopsis:
the first cowboy and his wife whom he killed by allowing her to ride his horse which throws her

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
San Francisco     1976

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
City Lights, San Francisco, 1983   

Music:
-

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Genre:
operetta One Act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Savage/Love

Savage/Love
Romantic love in all its aspects

Notes:
Written by Joseph Chaikin And Sam Shepard

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Sam Shepard Seven Plays" published by Faber and Faber 1985   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Monologue play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Seduced

Synopsis:
Henry Hackamore, reputed to be the richest man in the world, is now a bearded, aged recluse, who lives on the top floor of a Caribbean luxury hotel, attended by his bodyguard-nurse, Raul. Paranoid, desperately lonely and obsessed by a fear of germs, he is kept alive by drugs and infusions of blood from other geniuses. Aware that his life is ebbing away, and determined to have one last fling, he flies in two women whom he had known, and loved, in the past. But while they are still attractive and vigorous, his energies are so drained that they can only talk of other times and other places. Entrapped by his delusions, Hackamore is a burnt-out case, a parody of the American Dream who, despite his limitless wealth and power, cannot forestall the inevitable decline into futility, boredom and an agonizingly lonely death.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Providence, Rhode Island     1978

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Buried Child and Other Plays", Faber, London, 1980   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Shaved Splits

Shaved Splits
sketch about two old, old people sitting on a porch in a pair of rocking chairs and talking. Just talking-and of course they don't know how funny they are. Each has had one or more previous marriages and perhaps a few flings, but they are hazy as to details. In fact, they don't always know which one the other one is.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Unseen Hand and Other Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1971   

Music:
-

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Shepardsets

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
Composer: Max Roach

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Silent Tongue

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

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Genre:
Film Script Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Simpatico

Synopsis:
NahatDennis

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Vintage Books, NY, 1995

Methuen Drama, London   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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States of Shock

Synopsis:
the evening begins with a bang. the deceptive calm of a family restaurant, filled with two disgruntled customers and an inept waitress, is disrupted by offstage sounds of war and destruction. the real disruption begins with the entrance of the Colonel, a middle-aged brute of a man wearing the medals and uniform of a commander, who wheels on Stubbs, a mute paraplegic veteran who served with the Colonel's son. According to the Colonel, they have come "to toast the death of my son and have a nice dessert." While the customers, named only White Man and White Woman, and the waitress, Glory Bee, watch, the Colonel dominates and tyrannizes the stage. Stubbs slowly regains the power of speech and memory, and the tables turn when he reveals his enormous battle scar and hints that he is the Colonel's son. In increasingly bizarre and violent scenes, including a whipping and a food fight, STATES OF SHOCK reaches its shattering conclusion.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1991

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1992

Methuen Drama, London   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Vaudeville Nightmare Piece

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Suicide in B Flat

Synopsis:
improvisation within the genre of pulp fiction as two detectives try to solve mystery of the corpse

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut     1976

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Buried Child and Other Plays", Faber, London, 1980   

Music:
-

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Genre:
with music One Act

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Superstitions

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
under pseudoname Walker Hayes with O-Lan Shepard, music by Catherine Stone

1st Produced:
San Francisco     1981

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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Genre:
theatre piece Piece

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Tongues

Synopsis:
on his deathbed a man hears voices and sees visions from his past and from his future

Notes:
written with Joseph Chaikin

1st Produced:
San Francisco     1978

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Seven Plays", Bantam, New York, 1981   

Music:
-

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Genre:
piece for voice and precussion Piece

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Tooth of Crime, The

Synopsis:
an ageing punk rocker goes against the advice of his courtiers, fights a duel with a usurper and loses, killing himself to preserve his honour

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
London     1972

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Grove Press, New York, 1974   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play with Music

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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True West

True West
Austin, working on his Hollywood screenplay, is disturbed by the arrival of his estranged brother, Lee, just returned from three months in the desert. During a brief spell of uneasy cohabitation in their absent mother's house, Lee employs himself as a door-to-door burglar before killing his brother's film idea by pitching his own to Austin's producer. But Lee is no writer and the brothers must strike a deal, escalating sibling rivalry to fever pitch in the blazing Californian heat.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
San Francisco, Magic Theatre     10 Jul 1980

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

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Genre:
Comedy

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Turista, La

Turista, La
couple in Mexican hotel room suffering from sunburn when man dies of dysentery, second act has same elements set in America where son jumps through wall

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1967

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1968   

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Unseen Hand, The

Unseen Hand, The
common poems of real and imagined moments in the spell of love, Shepard

Notes:
Composer: Beeson Carroll

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "the Unseen Hand and Other Plays", Bobbs Merrill, Indianapolis, 1971   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Up To Thursday

Synopsis:
there's more to life than winning trophies - an examination of lust and love.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York     1965

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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War In Heaven, The

Synopsis:
a piece about an angel trapped between two dimensions

Notes:
broadcast 1985 written with Joe Chaikin

1st Produced:
London     1987

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
New American Library, New York, 1986   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Monogue for radio Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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When the World Was Green

When the World Was Green
A hauntingly lyrical memory play, WHEN the WORLD WAS GREEN is steeped in the elliptical, poetic style for which Shepard is justly celebrated. Sketched out in just a handful of scenes is a world of sensual delight, of great journeys to distant lands, and exotic food piled as high as a mountain, glistening in the sun. But as always, the beauty of Shepard's landscape is only skin-deep. Under the surface lies a family vendetta that has lasted for seven generations. the play has only two characters, an old man who was once a superb chef and a young reporter who comes to interview him in the prison where he as been locked up for many years after poisoning a man he mistook for his cousin. their eight conversations are interspersed with a sequence of monologues in which both characters recall incidents from their childhood. these link together to form a tender narrative of regret and loss through which they transcend their memories and reach mutual forgiveness and love.

Notes:
written by Joseph Chaikin And Sam Shepard

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
the Michael Chekhov Theatre Co. & Michael Horn

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama, full length

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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