Sam Shepard is considered by many critics to be the most important playwright in the Off-Broadway theatre movement. His unique blend of styles--using mythical American heroes, rock and roll music, poetically unconventional language--and his ability to create vivid dreamlike images set Shepard apart from more traditional American playwrights. No other American playwright has won more than two Obie awards, while Shepard has collected ten--for Chicago (1966); Icarus's Mother (1966), Red Cross (1966), La Turista (1967), Forensic and the Navigators (1968), Melodrama Play (1968), The Tooth of Crime (1973), Action (1975), Curse of the Starving Class (1977), and Buried Child (1979), which also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Sam Shepard was born Samuel Shepard Rogers in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, on 5 November 1943 to Samuel Shepard and Elaine Schook Rogers. The son of a career army officer, Shepard spent his childhood years moving from base to base. Among his early childhood memories are experiences of his family stationed on Guam...