Sample Essay On Sam Shepard

Research Papers Sam Shepard

Sam shepard, is a distinguished and fulfilled actor, playwright and director whose works were not only performed by his peers but also criticize by many of his admires and theater goers. He ranks as one of the most celebrated dramatist in America having written close to fifty plays. Some of his plays have been anthologized and many theater professors are known to teach Sam shepard as a canonical American author. Sam’s works have been produced across America in venues ranging coffee shops, community theaters to college campuses and professional theaters (Bottoms 78-81).

Outside his theater and stage works, Sam has earned fame as a writer, actor and director in the film industry giving him an iconic status enjoyed by few. Throughout his close to 40 years long career, Shepard has acquired numerous prizes, grants, fellowships and awards such as the Pulitzer Prize all attesting to his prowess in theater and film industry.
Sam shepard was born on 5th November 1943   under the name Samuel Shepard Rogers in Fort Sheridan, Illinois and was the eldest of three children. His father was an army officer and a onetime air force bomber pilot in World War II while his mother was a schoolteacher (Bloom 12). Sam shepard spent his early childhood moving from one military base to the other in the US until his family finally settled in Duarte California where his father became an avocado famer. Sam`s family was somewhat dysfunctional since his father was an abusive alcoholic and his mother was ineffectual. For this reasons Sam did not have a pleasant childhood memories of home, which is reflected in the recurrent dark themes in his writing.
While in Duarte California, Sam worked as a stable hand in a horse ranch while still attending high school where he began writing poetry and acting. He later graduated from high school in 1961 after which he studied agriculture in junior college hoping to become a veterinarian. Sam however dropped out of junior college when a travelling theater group called the Bishops Company Repertory Players came to town and Sam joined up and left with the group. Sam toured with the group for one year before moving to New York City where he worked as a bus boy at the village gate in Greenwich Village a leading New York jazz club (Shewey 100-112).
In the city of New York Sam focuses on writing one-act plays and soon joined and starts writing plays for groups such as the off-off -Broadway and the theater genesis. Here Sam had his first two plays "Cowboys” and "The rock garden” produced in 1964. Soon after receiving a grant from the University of Minnesota in 1966, he went ahead to win an OBIE Awards for the plays "Chicago”, "Icarus’ Mother”, and "Red Cross” which was an unprecedented feat of winning three awards in the same year. Sam wrote his first full-length play named "La Turista” in 1967; it was an allegory on the Vietnam War and was about two American tourists in Mexico. The play earned him his fourth OBIE award. In the following year (1968), Sam received an OBIE for "Melodrama Play” and "Cowboys #2” after which he receives a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. While writing plays, Sam shepherd also experimented with rock music by playing drums for a rock band known as the Holy Modal Rounders, he was putting to practice musical skills taught to him by his father (Bloom 55).
Sam Shepard married his high school sweetheart O-lan Jones Dark in 1969 and they later had a son by the name Jesse Mojo Shepard. By this time, Sam was gravitating towards screenwriting with his first teleplay "Fourteen Hundred Thousand” broadcasted on television in 1969. Sam also had a stint in Hollywood working alongside other screenwriters in Michelangelo’s Antonioni’s "Zabriskie Point”. Later on Sam and his family relocated to London where Sam stays for about three years writing plays. While in London, he writes the play "The Tooth of crime” which was adopted in the United States for production in 1973 and yet again winning Sam another OBIE.
After three years in London Sam Shepard returns back to the United States where he becomes the playwright in residence at the Magic Theater in San Francisco where he worked for ten years. Apart from working at the Magic Theater, Sam also joined Bob Dylan’s "Rolling Thunder Revue” which was a traveling band of musicians who toured the northern hemisphere in the 1970s. Sam was hired to write a movie based on the tour but ended up producing the book Known as "The Rolling Thunder Logbook”. 
With time Sam Shepard get an opportunity to enter into the cinema world by landing the lead role Terrence Malick’s "Days of Heaven” boosting his profile as an actor.
Despite Sam’s involvement in the world if cinema, it is his work as a playwright that defined his cultural contribution the United States. The dramatic structure of his language attracted critical attention with scholars and directors such as Stephen J. Bottoms seeking to find out how his rather unorthodox stage imagery and language managed to captivate the imagination of his audience. His passion for theater so him return to writing plays after his stint in the cinema world. Sam then went ahead to Wright some of his finest plays. He produced two successful plays "Curse of the Starving Class” and "Buried Child” which both earned him OBIE’s with the later winning the playwright a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 (Roudané 202-203). Both of this play debuted off-Broadway. Sam also did collaboration Joseph Chaikin of the Open Theater, who was an actor, a writer and director. They together came up with the plays "Tongues” and "Savage Love”.
In 1980, Sam shepard wrote "True West” a continuation to his family tragedy series that began with "Curse of the starving class”. "True West” was successful and starred a number of famous actors that included actors such as Philip Seymour, Gary Sinese, John Malkovich and many others. Meanwhile, owing to his good performance in the movie "Days of Heaven” Sam landed more and more roles in movies making him a household name. It is said that Sam’s good looks w gave him an advantage on screen. Sam also landed roles in movies such as "Raggedy Man”,”Frances’ and "Resurrection” where he co-starred with Ellen Burstyn (Shewey 71).
All this time Sam Shepard had somewhat kept off directing anything he wrote, however this changed in 1983 he directed "Fool for Love” which earned him an OBIE for best direction, this was his 11th OBIE award. In the same year, Sam landed a role in what could be termed as his most widely recognized film role, where he played Chuck Yeager in an epic drama based on the birth of Americas Space program. The film named "The Right Stuff”, which was well received in America perhaps because of the cultural implications of the space program in America. The film earned Sam an Academy Award nomination with his performance receiving praises from his audience and critics as well. The man he portrayed in the film also hailed his sterling performance.
Despite his success in the film industry, Sam once again made a fruitful return to the stage by writing and directing "A Lie of The Mind ” in 1986 which was staged off-Broadway and earned him several accolades and awards not forgetting a New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best New Play and a Drama Desk Award as well (Bloom 56-58).
By the late 1980s, Sam Shepard was writing fewer plays compared to the previous years. Sam wrote even fewer plays in the 90s and most of his critics could not help pointing out the fact. As the new millennium drew near Sam Shepard was in more demand as an actor than a writer and so he became more exposed to a larger audience. On the other hand, his involvement on stage was diminishing. In the 90s, Sam starred in a number of films and television productions. He co-stars with the likes of Julia Roberts and Diane Keaton in films such as the "Pelican Brief” (1993) and "Safe Passage” in 1994. Through the 90s and well into new millennium Sam continues writing only that his writings now take on a more political tone, perhaps owing to the fact that the world had become more complex (Bloom 85).
Between 1999 and the year 2012 Sam shepard stars in more than ten films showing his prowess as an actor. Some of these films include "Kicking a Dead Horse" (2007) ,"The Age of The Moon” (2009) and "Safe House” in 2011 where he co-stars with Denzel Washington (BBC).

References
BBC. Sam Shepard looks forward to City of Culture 2013. 12 December 2012. 16 March 2013
Bloom, Harold. Sam Shepard. New York City: Infobase Publishing, 2009.
Bottoms, Stephen J. The Theatre of Sam Shepard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Roudané, Matthew. The Cambridge Companion to Sam Shepard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Shewey, Don. Sam Shepard. Massachusetts: Da Capo Press,, 1997.