SOURCE: An interview with the editors and Kenneth Chubb, in Theatre Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 15, August-October, 1974, pp. 3-16.

In the following interview, Shepard discusses his background, his early experiences as a dramatist, and a number of specific plays.

[Theatre Quarterly]: Born 5 November 1943 at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, say my notes. …

[Shepard]: They weren't kidding, it was a real fort, where army mothers had their babies. My father was in Italy then, I think, and we moved around, oh, to Rapid City, South Dakota, to Utah, to Florida—then to the Mariana Islands in the South Pacific, where we lived on Guam. There were three of us children.

Do you remember much about living on Guam?

I remember the tin-roofed huts that we lived in, because it used to rain there a lot, and the rain would make this incredible sound on the tin roof. Also there were a lot...