Seven Plays

I've accepted the Blogging A to Z Challenge. All month, I'm going to blog about Books from A to Z.

Sam Shepard really hit the big time during my college years. Fool for Love. The Right Stuff. Buried Child.

I loved his image, the loner cowboy cruising the west. I loved the work itself. The crazed beauty of Tooth of Crime. The oddball intensity of Chicago. The rugged loneliness and anger of True West.

We did a production of True West that remains one of my favorites. I have a scar on my arm from being hit with a typewriter during the big fight scene one evening.

Shepard is also a master at creating short, atmospheric fiction. Motel Chronicles. Cruising Paradise. Day Out of Days. His imagery is stark and I almost prefer his fiction to his amazing stage work. You can just get enveloped in that atmosphere. It makes we want to put on a pair of cowboy boots and drive a pickup truck deep into the desert.

And it makes me want to be in one of his plays again...