Works
Sam Shepard’s first New York plays, Cowboys and The Rock Garden, were produced by Theatre Genesis at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery in 1964. For several seasons, he worked with Off-Off-Broadway groups including Judson Poets’ Theater, The American Place Theatre, La MaMa and Caffe Cino, collaborating with Ralph Cook, Ellen Stewart, Wynn Handman and many others. Eleven of Sam’s plays won Obie Awards, including Chicago, The Tooth of Crime, and Curse of the Starving Class. Other award-winning plays include Fool for Love, A Lie of the Mind, True West and Buried Child, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979. In 1986, Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy in 1992. He was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame two years later and was conferred with an honorary Doctor in Letters from Trinity College, Dublin in 2012. As a screenwriter, he worked with directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders. As an actor, he appeared in numerous films, including Days of Heaven, Resurrection, and The Right Stuff. His final works of prose, The One Inside and Spy of the First Person, were published in 2017.
Cowboys
Unpublished
Up to Thursday
Unpublished
The Rock Garden
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1976
Chicago
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1967
4-H Club
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 2012
Dog
Unpublished
Icarus’s Mother
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1967
Rocking Chair
Unpublished
Red Cross
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1967
Fourteen Hundred Thousand
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1967
Five Plays
Indianapolis
Bobbs-Merrill, 1967
London
Faber & Faber, 1969
Reprinted asChicago and Other Plays
New York
Urizen Books, 1981
London
Faber & Faber, 1982
Cowboys #2
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1976
Melodrama Play
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1967
Forensic and the Navigators
Dutton
New York, 1969
La Turista
Bobbs-Merrill
Indianapolis, 1968
“Sam Shepard”
The New Underground Theatre
Robert J. Schroeder
1968, New York, Bantam, 79-80
The Holy Ghostly
Bobbs-Merrill
Indianapolis, 1971
The Unseen Hand
Applause Theatre Book
New York, 1972
Oh! Calcutta! : An Entertainment with Music
New York
Grove Press, 1969
Me and My Brother
Producer: Two Faces, 1969
Maxagasm: A Distorted Western for Soul and Psyche. 2nd draft
Los Angeles
Creative Management Associates, 1970
Operation Sidewinder
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1970
Shaved Splits
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 2012
Cowboy Mouth (w/Patti Smith)
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1971
Back Bog Beast Bait
American Place Theatre
New York, 1971
Mad Dog Blues
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1971
The Tooth of Crime
Grove Press
New York, 1974
Zabriskie Point
New York
Simon and Schuster, 1972
Mad Dog Blues and Other Plays
New York
Winter House, 1972
Blue Bitch
Unpublished
Hawk Moon: A book of Short Stories, Poems and Monologues
Los Angeles
Black Sparrow, 1973
New York
Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1981
Geography of a Horse Dreamer
Grove Press
New York, 1974
Little Ocean
Unpublished
Nightwalk
Unpublished
“News Blues”
Time Out, 222, May 31- June 6, 1974, London, 17
“Less Than Half a Minute”
Time Out, 228, July 12-18, 1974, London, 16-17
“Emotional Tyranny”
Theatre Quarterly, 4.15, Aug-Oct 1974, 22
The Tooth of Crime and Geography of a Horse Dreamer
New York
Grove Press, 1974
London
Faber & Faber, 1974
Action
Faber
London, 1975
Killer’s Head
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1975
Action and The Unseen Hand: Two Plays
London
Faber & Faber, 1975
Angel City
Talonbook
Vancouver, 1976
Suicide in B-Flat: Mysterious Overture
Pluto
London, 1978
The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife
City Lights
San Francisco, 1983
Angel City, Curse of the Starving Class, and Other Plays
New York
Urizen Books, 1976
Reprinted asAngel City and Other Plays
London
Faber & Faber, 1978
Curse of the Starving Class
Dramatists Play Service
New York, 1976
Inacoma
Unpublished
“Language, Visualization and the Inner Library.”
Drama Review, 21, Dec-77, 49-58
Rolling Thunder Logbook
New York
Viking Press, 1977
New York
Penguin, 1978
New York
Limelight, 1987
Buried Child
Urizen Books
New York, 1979
Tongues (w/Joseph Chaikin)
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 2005
Seduced
Urizen Books
New York, 1979
Jacaranda (w/ Daniel Nagrin)
Unidentified
Savage/Love (w/Joseph Chaikin)
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 1981
Buried Child and Seduced and Suicide in B-Flat
New York
Urizen Books, 1979
Vancouver
Talon Books, 1979
London
Faber & Faber, 1980
Jackson’s Dance
Unpublished
True West
Samuel French, Inc.
New York, 1981
Four Two-Act Plays
New York
Urizen Books, 1980
London
Faber & Faber, 1981
Superstitions
Unpublished
Sam Shepard: Seven Plays
New York / Toronto
Bantam Books, 1981
London
Faber & Faber, 1985
Motel Chronicles
San Francisco
City Lights, 1982
London
Faber & Faber, 1987
Fool for Love
Dramatists Play Service
New York, 1984
Fool for Love and The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife
San Francisco
City Lights, 1983
London
Faber & Faber, 1984
Paris, Texas
Berlin
Road Movies; Nördlingen Greno, 1984
New York
Distributed by W.W. Norton, ©1984., 1984
“Peter Handke’s Inner Self”
Vanity Fair, Sep-84, 106-107
Fool for Love and Other Plays
New York / Toronto
Bantam Books, 1984
Renaldo and Clara
Produced By: Mel Howard
Distributed by: Circuit Films, 1985
Fool for Love
Producer: Cannon Group. Distributed by The Cannon Group Inc, 1985
A Lie of the Mind
Dramatists Play Service
New York, 1986
The War in Heaven: Angel’s Monologue (w/ Joseph Chaikin)
New American Library
New York, 1987
The Unseen Hand and Other Plays
New York / Toronto
Bantam Books, 1986
“True Dylan : A one-act play, as it really happened one afternoon in California”
Esquire, Jul-87, 57-68
A Short Life of Trouble
Vintage Books
New York, 2012
A Lie of the Mind: A Play in Three Acts and The War in Heaven: Angel’s Monologue
New York
New American Library, 1987
Fifteen Plays by Sam Shepard: Fool for Love and Other Plays
New York
Bantam Dell, 1987
Far North
Producer/Publisher: Alive Films, Nelson Entertainment, Circle JS Productions, 1988
Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard: Letters and Texts 1972–1984
New York
New American Library, 1989
New York
Theatre Communications Group, 1992
States of Shock
Dramatists Play Service
New York, 1992
Silent Tongue
Trimark, 1992 January – February 22.
States of Shock; Far North; Silent Tongue: A Play and Two Screenplays
New York
Vintage Books, 1993
London
Methuen, 1995
Simpatico
Dramatists Play Service
New York, 1995
When the World Was Green
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 2002
Cruising Paradise: Tales
New York
Knopf, 1996
New York
Vintage Books, 1997
Eyes for Consuela
Dramatists Play Service
New York, 1998
The Late Henry Moss
Alexander Street Press
Alexandria, 2002
Great Dream of Heaven: Stories
New York
Knopf, 2002
The Late Henry Moss; Eyes for Consuela; When the World Was Green: Three Plays
New York
Vintage, 2002
Don’t Come Knocking
Road Movies USA, Inc., 2003
The God of Hell
Vintage Books
New York, 2005
Kicking a Dead Horse
Faber & Faber
London, 2007
Ages of the Moon
Vintage Books
New York, 2012
Day out of Days: Stories
New York
Knopf, 2010
Evanescence, Or Shakespeare in the Alley
Vintage Books
New York, 2012
Heartless
Vintage Books
New York, 2013
Fifteen One-Act Plays
New York
Vintage Books, 2012
A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations)
Dramatists Play Service
New York, 2014
Two Prospectors: The Letters of Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark
Texas
University of Texas Press, 2013
The One Inside
New York
Vintage Books, 2017
Spy of the First Person
New York
Knopf, 2017
Sam Shepard’s film career spanned 40 years. He appeared in over 65 films including Country (1984); Steel Magnolias (1989); Voyager (1991); Hamlet (2000); Don’t Come Knocking (2005); The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007); and Blackthorn (2011). His portrayal of Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983) gained him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In addition to his acting credits, he wrote the screenplays for Zabriskie Point (1970) and Paris, Texas (1984), and both wrote and directed Far North (1988) and Silent Tongue (1993). A complete filmography can be found here.