One of the most exciting and produced American playwrights of the second half of the century, Sam Shepard began his writing career in 1964 and continues today. This book examines the playwright's canon first from the perspective of dramatic analysis and intertextuality in terms of theme and performance vocabulary, then from the director's perspective in interpretation for performance. The book is useful to the scholar, the theatre professional, and the theatre goer. Shepard's dramaturgy is analyzed both in terms of dramatic and cinematic influences and of its originality. The author examines how Shepard has synthesized these influences into the unique contemporary dramatic form which Graham terms "Metarealism."