For five days this summer, St. Augustine will become a gathering place for artists, scholars and audiences drawn to the work of one of America’s most influential playwrights. ShepardFest opens July 30 at The Waterworks, bringing together live performances, staged readings, films, lectures and discussions centered on the life and creative legacy of Sam Shepard. Organizers describe it as the only festival in the world devoted entirely to Shepard’s work.
Led by Founding Artistic Director Raines Carr, the festival explores Shepard’s influence on American theatre and culture while creating opportunities for audiences to examine the recurring themes that shaped his writing: family, identity, violence, love, longing and the complicated mythology of the American landscape.
Shepard moved fluidly between artistic forms throughout his career, working as a playwright, actor, poet, musician, screenwriter and filmmaker. His writing rarely offers tidy resolutions. Instead, it places characters inside uncomfortable contradictions, often revealing the secrets, disappointments and generational wounds hidden beneath familiar ideas about family and home.
Those themes are at the center of this year’s festival, particularly in a full-scale production of Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Buried Child.
Written in 1978, Buried Child begins as a quiet family drama before unfolding into something more unsettling. The play follows Vince, a young man who returns to his grandparents’ Illinois farmhouse after a long absence. His arrival gradually exposes a decades-old family secret involving an illegitimate infant who was drowned and buried in the backyard.
The production will be directed by Mary Claire Branton and features a regional cast that includes Britt Corry as Dodge, Andrea McCook as Halie, Tyler Hammond as Tilden, Josh Andrews as Bradley, Kaylee Byers as Shelly, Chad Boyd as Vince and Trevor Kluckman as Father Dewis.
Performances will be held July 31 and Aug. 1 at 7 p.m., followed by a 2 p.m. matinee Aug. 2. An invitation-only preview will open the festival July 30.
The festival will also present a staged reading of Kicking a Dead Horse, featuring Raines Carr and Brooke West Carr.
The one-man play follows Hobart Struther, a wealthy New York art dealer who abandons his marriage and successful career in search of a more authentic life in the American West. His reinvention is immediately interrupted when his horse suddenly dies, leaving him stranded beside the animal and forced to confront the meaning of his choices.
Although Shepard wrote the play in 2007, its questions about success, identity, reinvention and authenticity remain sharply relevant. The staged reading will begin at 2 p.m. Aug. 1.
This year’s special guest is longtime Shepard researcher Robert M. Dowling, author of Coyote: The Dramatic Lives of Sam Shepard, considered one of the most comprehensive examinations of Shepard’s life and career.
Dowling will attend festival events, participate in audience talkbacks and sign copies of his book during a public signing at 4 p.m. Aug. 1.
Educational programming will begin July 31 with three lectures examining Shepard’s work and the process of bringing theatre to life. Sloan Stuart will present a lecture on Sam Shepard and American theatre at 10 a.m. Eddie Moncrief will discuss designing impactful sets inside historic buildings at noon, and Nathanael Tria will explore costume design for Shepard’s characters at 2 p.m.
The festival will extend beyond the stage through a partnership with the St. Augustine Film Festival.
Two films featuring Shepard will be screened Aug. 3. Thunderheart, starring Val Kilmer, Graham Greene and Shepard, will begin at noon. The film is a fictionalized story loosely connected to events surrounding the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation.
At 3 p.m., the festival will screen Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, a visually celebrated film set in the American Midwest during the early 20th century. Shepard appears in the film alongside Richard Gere and Brooke Adams.
For organizers, St. Augustine provides a fitting setting for a festival devoted to an artist whose work frequently examines memory, mythology and the influence of place.
As the nation’s oldest city, St. Augustine is shaped by layers of history and storytelling. Its historic buildings, walkable downtown and active arts community create an intimate environment where performances and conversations can intersect. The city is more than a backdrop for ShepardFest; it becomes part of the experience, surrounding audiences with the same tension between memory and reinvention that runs throughout Shepard’s work.
ShepardFest Schedule
Thursday, July 30
7 p.m. — Invitation-only preview of Buried Child
Friday, July 31
10 a.m. — Lecture: Sam Shepard and the American Theatre with Sloan Stuart
Noon — Lecture: Designing Impactful Sets in Historic Buildings with Eddie Moncrief
2 p.m. — Lecture: Designing Costumes for Shepard Characters with Nathanael Tria
7 p.m. — Buried Child
Saturday, Aug. 1
2 p.m. — Staged reading of Kicking a Dead Horse
4 p.m. — Book signing with Robert M. Dowling
7 p.m. — Buried Child
Sunday, Aug. 2
2 p.m. — Buried Child
Monday, Aug. 3
Noon — Film screening: Thunderheart
3 p.m. — Film screening: Days of Heaven
5 p.m. — Invitation-only closing party
All ShepardFest events will take place at The Waterworks, located at 184 San Marco Ave. in St. Augustine.
Tickets are available at lightworks.ludus.com. For additional information, email info@shepardfest.org or call 904-439-9954.
