Starting the new year, Shepard fans can look forward to Discovery Channel's six-hour TV series, KLONDIKE, airing three consecutive nights beginning January 20th. Click on the photo below to watch an interview in which Sam shares his thoughts on the Gold Rush.

Jim Mickle's COLD IN JULY will premiere on January 18th at the Sundance Film Festival. In a recent interview, the director commented on his film - "'Cold in July' is an 80’s revenge thriller. It’s still very character based. It’s still very family based. It’s a father-son revenge thriller, which I think is kind of awesome. We really set out to do a movie that was going to be fun from start to finish and wasn’t going to follow- you know it’s based on a book, but what I loved about the book was that it followed no formula and it had a lot of familiar elements, it had a lot of pulpy ingredients, but it just kept unfolding in a way that you could never guess... So we set out to do that with this movie. To really make a movie that doesn’t play by any genre rules. It’s thriller, it’s action, its comedy. It’s really different. Right now it’s really fun for me because it’s kind of the exploration process of finding exactly how all these disparate elements will come together... I always felt Michael [C. Hall] was one of the most talented actors out there, but seeing him do this…he’s just incredible. Sam and Don [Johnson] are also just equally incredible. Two very, very different human beings, but two really interesting people."

"I found myself seated between the reserved Sam Shepard and Broadway's feared columnist Michael Riedel. After lunch when the elusive Mr. Shepard, famous writer and actor extraordinary and I made nice contact, he told me of his children and his life in Kentucky."  ...Liz Smith, NY Luncheon, December 11, 2013

Sam's farm in Midway

In a December 6th article called "Shepherding Shepard", Adam Roberts of the Austin Chronicle reports on the success of the Wittliff Collection Exhibition - The Writer's Road: Selections from the Sam Shepard Papers now on display at Texas State University until February 14, 2014. David L. Coleman, director of the Wittliff Collections, says, "It's been one of the most popular exhibitions we've ever staged. Everyone from school kids to college students to retirees has been coming to see the show."  Roberts writes, "A visit to 'The Writers Road' makes clear the rich holdings of the Shepard collection at Texas State University. And yet the Wittliff is not the only repository for Shepard's materials in Central Texas. In fact, the other major collection of the dramatist's work exists just over 30 miles to the north, at the University of Texas' Harry Ransom Center." According to HRC Assistant Director for Acquisitions and Administration Megan Barnard, anyone interested in how Shepard developed his work will find ample material for study in the Ransom Center's holdings. She explains, "The collection is filled with drafts and revisions of many of Shepard's plays, stories, poems, and other works. Especially interesting is a series of notebooks in which Shepard recorded thoughts and ideas related to his plays, acting roles, songs, and travels. These notebooks offer a unique glimpse into Shepard's creative work not just as a writer but also as an actor and musician."

Sam must be getting into the holiday spirit because on Thursday night he joined his fellow cast members at the premiere of August: Osage County. It appeared that the entire cast was there except for Meryl Streep and Ewan McGregor, who were both off shooting new projects. The star-studded premiere was held at the Ziegfeld Theatre. The NY Daily News reported that our playwright was acting much less bashful than he was at Thursday's luncheon. An eavesdropper picked up Sam asking his co-star, 5-foot-9 Julianne Nicholson, "Are you wearing heels or stilts?" Ms. Nicholson starred in "Heartless" when it premiered at the Signature Theatre last year.

Here's another quote from Meryl Streep about Sam: "One of the most upsetting scenes that we shot was really early on, and it was with Sam Shepard, a writer I really have always admired, and I've also admired him as an actor. To look at him close up and see his loathing of me, that was really hard because you get old. You look old. You’re old. And, you still think that maybe there’s a spark of love from this person who’s gone through everything. To look into his eyes and realize he’d rather be dead than looking at me. Oh, that was brutal. That sort of set the tone for my own dealing with his death and everything else afterwards."

We all know that Sam is not into publicity so when he accepted an invitation to yesterday's luncheon honoring "Osage" producer Jean Doumanian, that was a surprise. Perhaps he's back in NY for the holidays, a time to regroup with the family. Reporting the event at the swanky Le Cirque restaurant, journalist Roger Friedman wrote, "Shepard, looking like a dusty cowboy in the city, had the seat of honor next to Liz Smith. They talked Texas." However, when it came time for NY Post's Michael Riedel to do a little Q&A with the cast, Sam tried the invisible act by hanging out in the background even though fellow cast members repeatedly encouraged him to join them. Co-star Juliette Lewis said,  "It’s a miracle he’s even here. We should count our blessings." When she was asked what they talked about on set, she responded, "Rock and roll, Patti Smith, the West. He's a cowboy."

Friedman continues, "Sam did stick around through dessert, hanging with Cooper and chatting with actor Bob Dishy. He talked to yours truly about late genius novelist David Foster Wallace, who took his own life at a young age."

The Sundance Film Festival has just announced its lineup and COLD IN JULY will be among the 16 films to be screened in the US Dramatic Competition. Filmed last summer, the violent small-town corruption tale stars Michael C. Hall, Don Johnson and Sam. The festival runs January 16-26. The festival is featuring the following synopsis:  How can a split-second decision change your life? While investigating noises in his house one balmy Texas night in 1989, Richard Dane puts a bullet in the brain of low-life burglar Freddy Russell. Although he’s hailed as a small-town hero, Dane soon finds himself fearing for his family’s safety when Freddy’s ex-con father, Ben, rolls into town, hell-bent on revenge. Michael C. Hall brings a shell-shocked vulnerability to his portrayal of Dane that contrasts perfectly with the grizzled badasses portrayed by Sam Shepard and Don Johnson.

Among the many reviews this week on OUT OF THE FURNACE, I have to share this funny quote - "This is the kind of film where everybody on screen could shoot and skin a 12-point buck, rebuild a 1970 Dodge Challenger's engine and fail a sobriety test on the fly. It's as if an entire town has been populated by characters from Bruce Springsteen songs."

Two film critics pointed out a particular scene between Christian Bale and Sam. James Ward wrote, " "Playwright Sam Shepard also turns in a strong performance as Baze’s stoic uncle. Shepard and Bale’s scenes together as they go hunting for deer are quiet but powerful." And Allison Long echoed that with "The quiet scenes between Bale and Shepard and the electric scenes between Bale and Harrelson are some of the best in the film and show how the film can truly sing when all the elements successfully come together."

That a NEW Sam Shepard play could  premiere in Northern Ireland last Thursday without a word written about it for three days is truly amazing. Actually it's downright shameful. Yes, bring on Sam Shepard for Londonderry's City of Culture 2013 celebration. Have him write a play specifically for this occasion and once it's staged, let's not mention it.

Well, we do know that BBC's art show host, Marie-Louise Muir, interviewed Sam last week regarding "A Particle of Dread" and that program will be broadcast in Northern Ireland on December 12th.

And the discussion with Clare Dwyer-Hogg following the screening of "Paris, Texas" at the Brunswick Moviebowl on November 21 can now be read at this link.

According to blogger Doug Blane, most of the audience at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow on November 16th did remain after the "True West" performance for the Q&A with Sam. Some didn't. I'm trying to think of some reason why you wouldn't stay to meet the playwright. It was free. Ummm... Maybe the laundry was waiting?

When Sam came on stage, we are told he was wearing jeans. When have you last seen Sam wearing anything but jeans? The most boring piece of apparel imaginable. Anyway, after a few minutes, he starts to relax and share his wisdom on writing - "You don't necesarily have a lot of motivation or predestination about where you're going. You just start. Characters, situations and places appear, but there is never a lot of thinking about it. That takes place as you're writing." Yes, it's true. I've had that experience. Often times it happens at the moment the ink spills out of the pen, simple as that. For me, it rarely happens at a keyboard.

Asked which brother in the play ["True West"] is based on himself, he says "Everything you write is based on yourself, no matter how much writers want to deny it."

No word yet from Northern Ireland as to the success of last night's premiere of  "A Particle of Dread", Sam's personal spin on the Oedipus tragedy, first dramatized two thousand years ago. This ancient Greek classic has been re-imagined by our playwright as a modern thriller set in the desert of the American West. Sam's philosophy fits right in - "I think Sophocles must have had an intention. I don’t think he was writing just for the heck of it. I think he knew very well what we all know yet pretend not to. I think he knew we each have a destiny and a fate. That they work side by side, whether we see it or not. That this destiny is somehow written; forecast, like the weather."

Every time I listen to "A Horse With No Name", I can't help but think of Sam Shepard. After finally looking up some background on the 1972 song, I discovered that musician Dewey Bunnell of a band called America, wrote the lyrics. He was actually living in the desert in his earlier years because like Sam, his Dad was a military man stationed in California. His family often traveled to the desert in Arizona and New Mexico. As an Easterner, I longed to see the desert. Finally my husband and I drove to the Mojave Desert on a cross-country road trip four years ago and now I love the song even more. I wonder if it's a Shepard favorite...

The Independent Spirit Award nominees were announced on Tuesday and  "August: Osage County" will receive the Robert Altman Award, which is given to one film's director, casting director and its ensemble cast. It will be presented on March 1, 2014.

In a recent interview, Meryl Streep was asked about the famous playwright in the role of her husband. She responded, "I was so thrilled Sam Shepard was cast in this part. And when I met him, I was hairless, toothless. And he looked at me just the way he was supposed to, with complete revulsion. It sort of broke my heart and really made me mad. It was fuel for the rest of the thing."

The photo is twenty years old and was featured in Premiere magazine. The quote is from an interview with Sam in The Observer seven years later.

Last night "Paris, Texas" was screened at the Foyle Film Festival in Derry followed by a Q&A with Sam, that was supposedly led by writer Clare Dwyer-Hogg. I have no information at the moment about the evening except for these two photos.

Yesterday it was announced that the 25th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival will present Julia Roberts with the Spotlight Award for "August: Osage County". It will be given at its annual awards gala on January 14th. Festival Chairman Harold Matzner praised the actress: “Her ability to consistently give standout performances over the past 25 years is remarkable. In her latest, 'August: Osage County,' she is a key catalyst in a darkly comic tale of a family coming back together after tragedy strikes." [Can you name two other Shepard/Roberts movies?]

"In the dance studio on the top floor of the Derry Playhouse, American actor and playwright Sam Shepard sits in front of his typewriter each day as he watches his latest work take shape. Now in the fourth week of rehearsals, just over a week before the eagerly awaited return of the Field Day Theatre Company, the cast of 'A Particle of Dread' are rehearsing from morning until night. As Sam watches them work, the tap of the typewriter is a constant presence - and a reminder of the exciting genesis of a new play by one of the world’s most renowned writers."

Here's a new portrait of Sam with director Nancy Meckler and cast members.

According to Deadline, folks in the Big Apple and LA will get an early look at Scott Cooper‘s "Out of the Furnace".  Relativity Media just announced that the film will open in those two cities on December 4, two days before it goes nationwide. The film, which had its world premiere on November 9 at the AFI Fest, won the Taodue Golden Camera Award for Best First/Second Film at the Rome Film Festival last week.

Here are some photos of Sam attending Nuala Herron's exhibition at the Derry Playhouse. The award-winning local artist was commissioned by Culture Company to create an exhibition, featuring a number of oil paintings and drawings of local people as a way of telling the story of Derry/Londonderry through portraiture.

While Sam was in Londonderry this month preparing for the world premiere of his new play, "A Particle of Dread" (Oedipus Variations), he was contacted by the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow and asked if he would attend the last performance of "True West" on November 16. He accepted a few days ago and agreed to take questions from the audience during a Q&A session after the show along with director Philip Breen.

Dominic Hill, the theatre’s artistic director, said: “It’s wonderful that we’re able to welcome Sam Shepard to our theatre to see our production of his play 'True West'. That he’s been kind enough to take to the stage following the performance to talk about his work is a real coup and I’m excited that Glasgow audiences will have the chance to hear from such a legendary figure whose work as a playwright, actor and director stands as a commentary of contemporary American culture."

Scott's Cooper's OUT OF THE FURNACE premiered at the 27th AFI Fest on Saturday night.  A few reviews surfaced soon after the screening and the general feeling was very positive. Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter called it a "smart and stirring drama" with a star-studded cast who all gave first-rate performances. In fact, the film received a lengthy ovation from the audience at the TCL Chinese Theatre. One moviegoer remarked, "It makes 'The Deer Hunter' look like 'Mary Poppins'. Yowser!

Scott Foundas of Variety called it a "powerfully acted descent into the hellfire of rusted-out steel town America. He continues, "Cooper seems to make actors feel safe and willing to expose themselves in ways they ordinarily might not, and time and again he takes scenes to places of unexpected emotional power."

And what about Sam's performance? Charlie Schmidlin of Indie Wire writes, "Perhaps the most understated and enigmatic contribution though is from Sam Shepard, playing Red, the brothers' uncle who grows closer to the family once Russell gets out of prison. As a positive influence in the siblings' lives, he is a symbol of stoic responsibility, but watch his face as he and Bale infiltrate a crack den later on in the story, and you see a glint of his most savage tendencies that makes you wish Cooper had devoted more time to that aspect."

Allison Long of Film School Rejects also mentions Sam - "The quiet scenes between Bale and Shepard and the electric scenes between Bale and Harrelson are some of the best in the film and show how the film can truly sing when all the elements successfully come together."

If you've seen Treva Wurmfeld's documentary, SHEPARD & DARK, you may have been a bit confused about the chronology of the film and its uneven editing. It skips around so much that sometimes you don't have a clue where or when they're filming. In the beginning of the film, Sam arrives in San Marcos with the correspondence with scenes later filmed of the pair going through their letters. Huh? Anyway, I found this explanation from the director to be helpful - "It was about six weeks altogether over the course of eighteen months. It was much harder to know where Sam might be at any second; I couldn’t just go visit him, as I could with Johnny. There were times where I knew he’d be in Los Angeles, so I’d set up an interview. Once, I heard he would be in Kentucky, so I arranged to fly there for literally two days to meet him. The initial shoot was our drive down to Deming, New Mexico; then to Santa Fe; and on to San Marcos, Texas. That journey was a total of about six days. With Sam, I shot these little chunks, and another in Taos and Southern Colorado for about four days – they were all over the place. As for Johnny, I spent about ten days with him in Deming. Then, there was the Santa Fe chunk with both of them that took up a couple weeks."

When asked about the status in the friendship between Sam and Johnny, Ms. Wurmfeld replied, "It has been nearly a year since we finished the film. There was a period of time where I had heard they got back together and met at a Denny’s halfway between Deming and Santa Fe. But then I heard they had another falling out, and as far as I know, they aren’t talking to one another. Now, that could have changed yesterday."

Deadline has just announced that a promo for COLD IN JULY will be shown at the AFM, which kicked off yesterday. Based on Joe R. Lansdale's cult-classic novel, the film was shot last summer about five miles from my home in upstate NY. Paris-based Backup Media teamed up with Memento Films International to finance the film, which will hit theaters in spring 2014. Here's the first publicity still showing Sam with Michael C. Hall and Don Johnson.

The New Yorker published an article this week by Patti Smith about the 10/27 death of musician Lou Reed. Ms. Smith writes, "As news of Lou’s death spread, a rippling sensation mounted, then burst, filling the atmosphere with hyperkinetic energy. Scores of messages found their way to me. A call from Sam Shepard, driving a truck through Kentucky."

Anyone know the Shepard & Reed connection? Well, back in 1984, Lou Reed wrote a song called "Doin' the Things That We Want To", which acclaimed Sam's play, "Fool for Love" and the films of Martin Scorcese. If you listen to it, you'll note that it sounds just like a Bob Dylan song.

So, Sam was home at his horse farm in Midway last week but, according to the folks at San Francisco's Magic Theatre, this week he's now in Ireland preparing for the premiere of his play later this month. A birthday bash was loosely organized by Magic to celebrate Sam's 70th birthday this week without the honoree. It ended up being a kind of pop-up affair, a combination of ceremony, performance, film screening of "This So-called Disaster" and all-night celebration. Sam is not a party boy, so it's doubtful he would have derived any pleasure from attending.

The 26th Foyle Film Festival previously announced that German director Wim Wenders would be joining Sam for a Q&A after the screening of "Paris, Texas" on November 22. Apparently, there has been a change for reasons unknown and Wenders will not be present. The festival is now booking tickets for "Sam Shepard in Conversation with Writer Clare Dwyer-Hogg" after the film screening at the Brunswick Moviebowl.

This week director Treva Wurmfeld  drew some parallels between "Paris, Texas" and her film, "Shepard & Dark". It's a given that Sam wrote the script at a time when he was abandoning his own son, but I hardly see any resemblance between Travis, the annoying Harry Dean Stanton character, and Sam Shepard, other than not wanting to get on an airplane. Ms. Wurmfeld does indicate that she recently spoke with Sam, who said "he'd heard" her film was great, but hadn't seen it because it would be too difficult to watch. Ms. Wurmfeld notes, "He still doesn't like looking back at his past." Too bad he didn't like looking back at his past years ago. He could have saved himself a lot of grief and might have come closer to living a happy life. We know for sure Mr. Shepard will never write a memoir, but if he did, I might suggest the title of John Osborne's play, "Look Back in Anger".

By the way, if you live in the Houston area, you might want to check out the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, which has an interesting triple bill for November 7th - "Shepard & Dark", Paris, Texas" and "Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction". My favorite Stanton movie will always be "Fool for Love". I can hear Sam's sister twanging that song now. Love it!

The Derry Playhouse has announced the cast for the upcoming premiere of Sam's play, A PARTICLE OF DREAD. The ensemble will include Irish actors Stephen Rea, Judith Roddy, Frank Laverty, Iarla McGowan, Brid Brennan, Caolan Byrne and Lloyd Hutchinson. It will be staged from November 28 thru December 7, 2013.

Check out the new KLONDIKE TV Page with posters & photos. The Discovery Channel series will be premiering in January 2014.

In the NY Times yesterday, an article was written on 85-year-old Ralph Cook, who died last month. He had a significant effect on Sam Shepard's life because Cook created Theater Genesis, the leading edge of what became known as Off Off Broadway.  In 1964 while Cook was waiting tables at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village, a 20-year-old busboy showed him a couple of manuscripts and soon "Cowboys" and "The Rock Garden" were being staged. In a recent telephone interview, Sam recalled, "He had heard that I'd written these one-acts and wanted to see them, and I think within a week we were in production. That's the way it was back then."

Museum of the Moving Image will present a rare big-screen showing of the 2007 Western "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" with director Andrew Dominik in person. Arguably a cult favorite since its release, this masterful and magisterial film was described by Star-Ledger critic Stephen Whitty as an "epic film that's part literary treatise, part mournful ballad, and completely a portrait of our world, as seen in a distant mirror." The screening on Saturday, December 7, at 6:00 p.m. will take place in the Museum's Sumner Redstone Theater, with the post-film conversation moderated by Chief Curator David Schwartz.

"'Jesse James' is the thing that I've done in my life that I'm most proud of," Dominik said. "I think it's a movie that really benefits from being on the big screen, and I love the idea of it having some further life on the big screen."

Another Shepard play has been published. "Heartless" was released earlier this month on October 8th in paperback edition printed by the Vintage Series.

The 26th Foyle Film Festival, which runs from November 20-24, will feature a program of documentaries, short films and feature films from all over the world. This year acclaimed German director Wim Wenders and our Pultizer Prize-winning playwright will attend a screening of PARIS, TEXAS, at the Brunswick Moviebowl on Friday, November 22. The film, directed by Wenders and written by Sam, won many international awards, including the Palm d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. It is also known for its cult following.

Tickets are still available for Sam's newest play, "A Particle of Dread" which is being staged at the Derry Playhouse from November 28 to December 7, 2013. Tickets can be purchased at this link. This distinctive and compelling take on the Oedipus story is being directed by Nancy Meckler, who goes way back with Sam. The 72-year-old American director has previously directed four of his plays in London - "Action" and "Killer's Head" at the Royal Court in 1975, "Curse of the Starving Class" in 1977 at the Royal Court, and "Buried Child" in 1980 at the Hampstead Theatre Club. Here is a photo of Meckler as well as the Derry poster.

When AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last month, it received a few dents in its armor due to mixed reviews. According to The Wrap, "Most critics were kind to the individual performers, but accused the picture of being overly stagey and marred by an inconsistent tone that veered from comic to tragic, often in the same scene." Last night the film had its US premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival and after the screening, director John Wells conducted an ad hoc focus group discussion. Wells said he still isn't exactly sure which version he'll use for the final scene. He indicated he would be meeting with film editor Stephen Mirrone and producers George Clooney, as well as Grant Heslov and Jean Dourmanian, who produced the stage version. In the meantime, the screen adaptation is making the film festival circuit in the Hamptons, Chicago, Philadelphia, Hawaii, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Napa Valley and St. Louis. Rather unusual for a Weinstein film. Here's a new movie still and poster.

On sale in nine days! I just read the Kirkus Review - hope the letters are more interesting than the review. By the way, do you think this Remington painting makes for a better book cover for these two old hands (laughing). And have you wondered why the book is called "Two Prospectors"?

Kirkus Review: Only three years separate Dark and Shepard, and in this engaging correspondence, we see the evolution of their relationship. They were buddies earlier, and they remained close despite Shepard’s rise to celebrity as a playwright and actor. Oddly, neither seems to have thought about going online (computers are not mentioned), so, except for the transcriptions of taped conversations, the volume has the feel of an earlier age. Editor Hammett notes that he has not assembled a complete collection but has edited heavily, arranging the pieces to tell a narrative, excising what he deemed repetitive or excessively quotidian, though some of the latter remains. The correspondence from both parties is rich with allusions to the writers they admire - principally Kerouac and Beckett, though many others appear as well, including Melville, Lardner, C.S. Lewis, Saroyan, Chekhov and Dickey. They write occasionally about money, the lack thereof, and about writing. The title comes from a play they began working on together but never finished. One transcript records an initial plotting session. Health issues occur continually. Dark’s wife declines as the book progresses, as do comments about life and writing. In 2008, Shepard wrote: "I continue to write because basically that’s all I’ve found I can really do."

A new poster!  They seem to be improving over time. After its festival premiere next month, the film will open in theaters on December 6.

It appears that Scott Cooper's OUT OF THE FURNACE will have its world premiere next month either at the AFI Festival, which runs from November 7-14 or at the Rome Film Festival, running from November 8-17. Just yesterday AFI Festival Director Jacqueline Lynaga decided to add the Scott Cooper film to their list of red carpet Centerpiece Galas.  A week ago the Rome Film Festival announced that 'Furnace' would be one of four English-language films in its competition line up. The studio has released this new movie still:

Sam's youngest son, 26-year-old Walker, has been playing in an old time string band based out of Brooklyn, NY. For some reason, they have recently changed the band's name from the Dust Busters to Down Hill Strugglers. I can't say I prefer this name. It sounds too negative! Walker sings and plays the fiddle, banjo, guitar and harmonica.

Fool for Love - through October 20 at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis

True West - at Pittsburgh Public Theater in PA from November 7 to December 8

Curse of the Starving Class - through October 20 at the Vortex Theater in Albuquerque

A Lie of the Mind - through October 13 at Hofstra University's Black Box Theater

Over the next month there will be a smattering of theatrical screenings for SHEPARD & DARK. Here's the film schedule:

9/25 IFC Center, NYC
10/4 Music Box Theater, Chicago
10/11 Laemmle's Music Hall, LA
10/18 The Screen, Santa Fe
10/25 Portland Museum of Art, Maine

On Thursday, October 10th, Director Treva Wurmfeld will also screen her film and answer questions from the audience at Texas State Universary in San Marcos, Texas. This event is taking place in conjunction with the Wittliff's current literary exhibition, "The Writer's Road: Selections from the Sam Shepard Papers."

Here are some new productions photos from the filming of SAVANNAH. The white-haired lady is director Annette Hayward-Carter. The movie is pulling an 8% on the Tomatometer.

 

The early reviews from the TIFF screening of AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY have been noted by the Tomatometer. Out of 14 reviews, nine were fresh and five were rotten giving the film a 64% rating. The film's bosses are reportedly planning on re-cutting the ending so it is more in line with the original stage show.

Catherine Shoard of The Guardian writes, "It's bracing, but it does feel closer to panto than melodrama, more exhausting than illuminating. Violet is a queen bitch...Yet for all the sparks, the character can't quite catch fire in these conditions. Such southern fried frankness might thrill those in the theatre but at the cinema we eat this sort of thing for breakfast." Kevin Jaggernauth of The Playlist complains, "While the choice of helmer John Wells  might not seem like the most inspired decision, all he theoretically has to do is put the camera on a tripod and let the actors do their thing. And he does. And yet, 'Osage County' still turns out be an exhausting, screechy drama, in which a lot of very good actors work very hard, and yet produce so little as a result." Laramy Legel writes, "While it’s a given that families around the world are complex, and capable of massively strange interactions, the only place you’ll find a group of people and a set of conflicts like this is in an extremely overwritten movie." Nick McCarthy of Slant magazine sums up his review with, "Wells prioritizes performance over clarity of its piquant dialogue, which slightly waters down the cleverly callous wit the play put front and center. Therefore, this serviceable version of 'August: Osage County' falls short of the powerhouse, painful punch-in-the-gut moxie the material requires to overwhelm. It pokes and occasionally stabs, but doesn't twist the knife as much as it should."

Eric Kohn of IndieWire predicts, "Interest in the high profile cast and well-known material should lead to strong returns. While not the leading contender for Best Picture, it's nonetheless a formidable contender in several performance categories." Tim Robey of The Telegraph laments, "The three-hour-plus duration of the play has been trimmed to a much less luxurious, multiplex-friendly two. The main casualty of this compression is the character of Johnna, the Cheyenne Indian housekeeper whom Bev hires both to cook and give him someone to talk to. Johnna's presence supplied a quietly astonishing finale on stage. The film, torn between Violet and its real protagonist, Barb, opts for a different ending, which is fine in itself – but the sum of the whole piece has been whittled down along the way. It just isn't quite the saga, the American epic, Letts first presented."

Here are more photos from the Wittliff Collections exhibition, "The Writer's Road: Selections from the Sam Shepard Papers" at the Alkek Library at Texas State University in San Marcos. The exhibition runs through February 14, 2014.

Filming for COLD IN JULY took place this summer practically under my nose but I never spotted our playwright though some folks saw him dining out at one of our local eateries. Kingston, just 90 miles north of the Big Apple, is becoming a hot spot for filmmakers. Personally I wouldn't hang out on North Front Street, especially after dark, but it offers up some good ambience. The film, directed by Jim Mickle, stars Michael C. Hall in the lead role as Richard Dane. He plays a small town frame builder from East Texas who kills a burglar in self-defense. The dead man's father swears revenge. A son's life for a son's life. But the two guilt-stricken fathers become unlikely allies, aided by Dane's tough-minded wife and a pig-raising detective from the Houston backwoods, as they discover a bigger secret, darker and more dangerous than any of them could have imagined. Sam and Don Johnson play Dane's sidekicks with Vinessa Shaw as Dane's wife. Here are some location shots in Kingston, but I'm not sure when or where the photo of Sam was taken but it shows him with Hall, Johnson and  Kasey Lansdale, who will be singing on the soundtrack. Her father, Joe Lansdale, wrote the novel the script is based on, so hey, perhaps part of the book deal was "my daughter gets to sing in this film if I fork over the rights." The novelist commented on the film saying, "All the actors were awesome, and very nice as well. I was humbled by their ability to bring my novel alive, and by Jim Mickle's directing style. Great stuff all around."

As previously reported, Treva Wurmfeld's documentary, SHEPARD & DARK, will be available on DVD and on demand beginning October 22. However, news has just broken that the film will also be released in select theaters on October 9. Since the producers apparently never thought the film was important enough to have its own web site, the public has no way of knowing which cities will be showing it. I think they should pay me for all my promotional efforts over the past year! Many cinema web sites pointed to sam-shepard.com as the best link for information (chuckling....). You can pre-order the DVD at Amazon.com. Bonus features will include extended interviews, deleted scenes, "7 Things I Learned from You" (not sure what that is), a photo gallery and poster gallery. Check out the new theatrical trailer at this link.

The first photos from the Discovery Channel's 6-part mini-series KLONDIKE have been released. Sadly, there are none of Sam. Expect the series to premiere sometime in 2014.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY will have its premiere gala on September 9th at 6:30 pm in Toronto. It has also been confirmed that Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts will attend the event. The film will open in US theatres on CHRISTmas Day. Newstalk says Sam's influence upon playwright Tracy Letts is unmistakable. In the film, Sam is an Oklahoma poet named Beverly Weston (hate the sissy name) who is battling alcoholism, while his wife Violet (Meryl Streep) suffers from cancer and a new-found drug dependency. Not long after hiring a live-in caregiver for Violet, Beverly vanishes, prompting the family to unite in a search that ends with a morbid discovery. Mother and daughters (Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson and Juliette Lewis) are left to deal with the aftermath, and each other. Alas, the four women have never exactly seen eye-to-eye. Prepare for a very dysfunctional family!

Stephen Rea says bringing Sam Shepard to Londonderry for his new version of the Oedipus legend in December is a long held dream. The forthcoming Field Day production of Shepard’s new play - ‘A Particle of Dread’ - promises to be one of the highlights of the UK City of Culture 2013 programme. In a recent interview, Mr. Rea says, "In the 60s,  American theatre exploded into extraordinary life in the shape of such groups as ‘Living Theatre,’ ‘La Mama’ and Joe Chaikin’s ‘Open Theatre,’ bringing a new daring and openness to theatrical presentation. Towards the end of the decade, some of the younger practitioners found their way to London, giving shape, direction and excitement to an emerging experimental Fringe theatre. Nancy Meckler and Sam Shepard were two of the most gifted of those to arrive in Europe. I worked with them both back then, and now I’m fulfilling a long held dream by bringing them to Ireland to work with some of our finest actors in this new version by Sam of Oedipus, directed by Nancy Meckler."

"A Particle of Dread" gets its title from a line in Oedipus when the character called Chorago says, "If the killer can feel a particle of dread, your curse will bring him out of hiding." The play will be  staged at The Playhouse Theatre in Derry from November 28 to December 7, 2013. For tickets, visit their website. The photo they're using for their publicity is taken from the 2004 Off-Broadway production of Caryl Churchill's play, "A Number", starring Sam and Dallas Roberts.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Magic Theatre is hosting a major celebration in November when Sam turns 70. However, it's not known whether or not the guest of honor will be present. Apparently, there will be a  birthday bash - 24-hour nonstop national live-feed readings of Sam's work at the Magic and theaters in New York, Chicago and elsewhere. The Magic-Shepard connection goes back to a staging of "La Turista" 43 years ago, when our playwright was already a multi-Obie Award-winning mainstay of the Greenwich Village alternative-theater scene. Between 1975 and 1983 the Magic produced a dozen of Sam's plays, many directed by the author. World premieres included some of his best work - "Buried Child," "True West" and "Fool for Love".

Sam reflects, "I had tremendous luck at a very early age. I don't know how that happens - I mean, the Pulitzer, I was like 36. It was one thing after another, the accumulation of awards. It intimidated me. You go through that conflict of wondering whether you're worth it. You start questioning the work. You just have to battle those things in yourself."

Presently, he's working on three different plays but adds, "But the main thing I'm working on is a book. I mean, I have several books out there, but they're all collections of short pieces. I'm determined to see if I can sustain prose beyond... to write a book book."

It's not clear just when he'll find the time. Besides the two plays he's writing for Ed Harris, one of them for Harris and Kathy Baker, who co-starred in "Fool for Love" at the Magic in 1983, he has to cross the Atlantic to Northern Ireland this fall. He's been working with Stephen Rea preparing for Derry's upcoming City of Culture celebration.

He explains, "We're working on Sophocles' 'Oedipus' variations on it. It's a work in process, so it's difficult to say what it is. I'm working with actors in a kind of improvisional way, but also writing."

Director/writer Ms. Annette Hayward-Carter obviously has not impressed the film critics with the debut of SAVANNAH. I can't remember reading such negative reviews. Fortunately, they're not about Sam's acting.  On the Tomatometer, 10 of its 11 reviews are rotten.

New York Daily News: "This amateurish work has the look and feel of a student film... This is a movie that's too square for some and too dull for all. The whole thing feels like a video you watch at a historical re-creation park before going to the gift shop."

Slant magazine: "The film, adapted from Cay's memoir, is impossible to take seriously as a commemoration of Moultrie's life or Allen's prolific status because of its plethora of contrivances, from the film score that's so sentimental it almost suggests an intentional satire of middlebrow historical dramas, to the cloying script that has Allen's charming little pleasantries treated by everyone who lives in the film's Mayberry-as-Savannah as uproarious quips."

Village Voice: "Annette Haywood-Carter's Hallmark Channel–ish film celebrates his rabble-rousing and fiercely independent streak with a suffocating earnestness. Drenched in dewy-eyed nostalgia, tinged with sorrow for the way changing tides made Ward an outcast, the story overflows with reverence but is drastically short on passion or suspense, and the framing device - in which an aged Christmas (Ejiofor, in awful old-man make-up) remembers his exploits with Ward to a friend (Bradley Whitford) - is as awkward and messy as the action proper is inert."

IndieWire: "Problems with the movie arise from the very first moment, where we're introduced to the rather confused structure that the movie will utilize to tell its tale. Based on the memoir, 'Ward Allen: Savannah River Market Hunter,'  the first misstep is in establishing a flashback structure whereby we see a 95-year-old Christmas (Chiwetel Ejiofor in some truly awful old age make-up) relate the stories of Ward to lawyer/friend Jack Cay (Bradley Whitford), who wrote the book the movie is based on. It's not clear why this format is used other than to include the author as a character in the adaptation of his own work. But this already speaks to the level of ambition (or lack of it) that the filmmakers have in regards to the material. There doesn't seem to be any effort at all to move beyond the memoir or use it as a starting off point - the picture seems to be merely a collection of anecdotes about Ward strung together into a two hour running time. It's this episodic approach which creates a two-fold issue of 'Savannah' lacking any narrative drive and bouncing jarringly from 'My Cousin Vinny'-esque courtroom comedy to romantic drama to love letter to the traditions of the South."

Timeout: "Like Allen’s bagged prey, the movie’s story is limp, its romances are flightless and, despite the talented cast, its performances are toothless."

NY Post: "An aristocratic, renegade white man goes hunting with a freed slave in the Old South: It sounds like 'Django Unchained.' But in the stately, persistently uninteresting 'Savannah,' the duo shoots ducks, not racists and criminals, and Jim Caviezel, as the real-life duck hunter Ward Allen, is no Christoph Waltz. Allen swaggers up and down the river like an overgrown Huck Finn, accompanied by Christmas Moultrie (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Allen spouts ornate dialogue and refuses to abide by society’s norms. But he never comes across as much more than a gasbag drunk, and his romance with a rebellious society girl (Jaimie Alexander) lacks the impact of either passion or tragedy."

NY Times: "The story becomes one of personal loss rather than epic adventure. We also don’t learn much about how the bond between Allen and his black friend was formed or see it evolve. So the film’s tale ends up being less rich than its lovely Georgia settings."

Variety: "Despite an effective Jim Caviezel, this anecdotal drama never rises above the level of lightly likable."

A reminder that MUD is now available through Video on Demand. I highly recommend it as good old-fashioned storytelling. It's a mix of "Stand by Me" meets "Summer of 42".

The folks at Relativity Media have changed their mind once more and are now giving OUT OF THE FURNACE a wide release on December 6. The company initially planned to premiere it on October 4 and then changed it to a limited release on November 27. Sam stars alongside Christian Bale.

Winner of four Academy Awards, THE RIGHT STUFF (1983) is considered by many to be Philip Kaufman’s magnum opus. This big screen adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book featured a satirical account of the early days in the U.S. space program from Chuck Yeager’s breaking of the sound barrier to the Mercury 7 astronauts. This complex portrayal humanized the aviation pioneers that led the country into a new frontier.

The San Antonio Express-News featured these photos, which are part of the exhibit, "The Writer's Road: Selections from the Sam Shepard Papers" in the Wittliff Collections at the Alkek Library at Texas State University in San Marcos. The two photos of Sam were taken by Bill Wittliff, the first one in 1992 and the second one twenty years later. The middle photo shows an exhibit case devoted to "Buried Child", his 1979 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama. The display will continue through February 14, 2014.

After striking up a friendship with Bill Wittliff, the founder of the university's Southwestern Writers Collection, while working on the movie, "Raggedy Man", Sam began making donations of his "stuff" beginning in 1992. According to exhibit co-curator Chad Hammett, most of the material Sam has sent, which includes drafts, director's notes and letters, is handwritten. He has never used a computer. Instead, he either works in longhand or on a typewriter. He scrawls notes in margins; he slashes through words or sentences, scribbling new text onto every bit of white space on the page. An early draft of an essay displayed near the rear of the gallery is nearly illegible. The case also shows successive drafts of the piece, each a little tidier as he got closer to what he wanted to convey. The drafts in each gallery case give a clear sense of a writer wrestling with words and ideas.

The drafts in the exhibit, not to mention his prolific output, which includes more than 40 plays and plenty of screenplays - show his devotion to his craft. Some of his letters reveal him to be a bit of a reluctant writer. In a 1995 note to close friend Johnny Dark, Sam wrote a list that included his favorite thing to do, which was "stroll through the pasture with cows and calves" and his second favorite thing to do was "chain saw oak firewood". [Yikes!]

Below the list, he wrote: "Sometimes, lists are better than writing - more fun - but then they get boring - so does writing. I would like to be burning up with writing, but I'm not. Other things are more fun."

Another letter suggests a cranky view of life on a film set, too. Written while he was working on "Country," it includes a reference to him holing up “like a woodchuck” in his trailer.

"Is it really necessary to make this much fuss and waste just to make a movie that's only going to disappear in time anyhow?,"  he writes, adding later, "Still it ain't a bad way to make a lot of $ in a relatively short time."

The exhibit also touches on his relevance on a global level. Posters from international productions of his plays are displayed, including posters advertising French and Turkish stagings of “True West.” Each features distinctly American iconography: A rocket bursting through an American flag for the French show, a cowboy hat resting atop the barest hint of a cowboy's face for the Turkish one.

So far I've come across two unfavorable reviews of HEARTLESS, one of several plays now being staged at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV. They speak of hooey and are similar to the many reviews that surfaced after the play's premiere in NYC last summer. The first one is by Jayne Blanchard. She writes:

Heartless, in many ways, is vintage Sam Shepard - a surreal, cubist kind of family drama with enigmatic characters, nods to iconic imagery and dialogue studded with non sequiturs that take the play into the realm of black comedy. It shows that even though Mr. Shepard is close to 70, he is still absorbed by the bitterness and hopelessness of life and by characters more prickly than a dog on a hot porch. He’s still pondering a uniquely American loneliness as hard as a blank stare and people wrapped in isolation even when sharing a room or a bed.

The hallmarks of Mr. Shepard’s work are all present and accounted for: the atonal riffing on various metaphysical unknowns, the deadpan absurdist touches, the ruminations on the infernal mystery of women and the coyote howl of lost youth and waning faculties...

This is the sort of play where someone steps outside for some fresh air and remarks “I’d like to gaze into the abyss awhile,” where a character goes for a run and returns with bloody feet, which she ritualistically cleans on the terrace without a single word of explanation, or women burst into snippets of modern opera usually favored by director Peter Sellars. You don’t know who is dead or alive, since people jump off steep roofs and saunter onstage a few minutes later miraculously unharmed and apparently everyone has the ability to chin-wag with the departed.

Ed Herendeen, to his credit, does not even try to corral this assemblage of determined weirdness - even though it does give the sense that the actors are just out there flailing around all by their lonesome and trying to make sense of it all. He just lets the action unfold in a series of spare parts that never quite come together. Not that it matters in Mr. Shepard’s rangy, surreal landscape of losers and the lost.

For a play ostensibly about the heart, you are not exactly left at the end reeling with emotion. There is too much of the brain in Heartless, and another organ as well, since you get the distinct feeling that ultimately, Mr. Shepard is wanking with the audience and laughing his butt off in the wings.

The second review is by Christopher Bransome:

It was not too long into the play that I had to acknowledge that the majority of the people on the stage were very likely mad. Trying then, to understand within the normal structures of thought seemed fruitless, but rather than reject the story outright as fiction or nonsense, I began to follow textures of the madness amid rhythms that a normal family might make.

Clearly, there is pain, including some typical family-style conversations about pain. There is fear, jealousy, blame. There is the explosive, near fatal-sounding boom boom boom boom boom of a heartbeat. I began to question which of the flesh and blood characters on the stage were real and which were inventions, and of whom? I’m not sure it was that important to know these things.

Shepard talks about his inspiration for “Heartless” in an interview with the literary director for Signature Theatre in New York City, where the play premiered last year. He describes having been in such a house in the hills overlooking Los Angeles, thus, “You feel like you’re not exactly of the city. You’re outside it.” ‘Heartless’ is not simple, and one is likely to feel not exactly of the play.

You can find new photos in the black & white gallery.

The DVD of MUD goes on sale on August 6th. That was quick! Sure to become "a newly minted American classic" (The Wall Street Journal), MUD arrives on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, and Video on Demand and Pay-Per-View August 6 from Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

In 2007 New York's Juilliard School conferred honorary doctorates to seven distinguished artists and cultural leaders during their 102nd commencement ceremony on May 25, 2007. Sam was one of the recipients and I'm posting some photos from that event.

Little, Brown and Company must be pleased that Sam Shepard has given some advance praise for their upcoming book, "The Maid's Version", written by Daniel Woodrell, author of "Winter's Bone". Woodrell's publicist shared Sam's comments last week and I assume we'll see them on the jacket when the book goes on sale on September 3. The novel is based on a true story of a 1928 explosion in an Ozarks dance hall.

"'The Maid's Version' is stunning. Daniel Woodrell writes flowing, cataclysmic prose with the irresistable aura of fate about it."