Sam Shepard, Actor and Pulitzer-Winning Playwright, Is Dead at 73
Mr. Shepard wrote or collaborated on screenplays for, among others, the directors Michaelangelo Antonioni (“Zabriskie Point,” 1970), Robert Frank (“Me
and My Brother,” 1969) and Wim Wenders (“Paris, Texas,” which won the top prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival).
He said, ‘If they’re in the pocket, they can do it standing on their heads.’ ”
Mr. Aukin said Mr. Shepard told him of his illness before they began working on the production, as he did with at least one other recent collaborator.
Mr. Shepard wrote more than 55 plays (his last, “A Particle of Dread,” premiered in
2014), acted in more than 50 films and had more than a dozen roles on television.
Cast members in Shepard plays are often required to tear down the set, literally (in his early
“La Turista,” a young man walked through a wall), and engage in highly physical fights.
Christopher Shinn, whose plays include the Pulitzer finalist “Dying City,” said he was reminded
of Mr. Shepard’s gifts as a writer while watching “Buried Child” Off Broadway last year.
“I felt the play pulsing with Sam Shepard’s unconscious, and I realized how rarely I feel that in the theater today,” Mr. Shinn said on Monday.
