Sam Shepard’s first New York plays, Cowboys and The Rock Garden, were produced by Theatre Genesis in 1964. For several seasons, he worked with Off-Off-Broadway theatre groups including La MaMa and Caffe Cino. Eleven of his plays won Obie Awards, including Chicago, The Tooth of the Crime, and Curse of the Starving Class. Other award-winning plays include Fool for Love, True West, A Lie of the Mind, and Buried Child, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979.

In 1986, Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy in 1992. He was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame two years later. As a writer and director, he filmed Far North and Silent Tongue. As an actor, he appeared in numerous films, including The Right Stuff, Days of Heaven and Resurrection. His final works of prose, The One Inside and Spy of the First Person, were published in 2017, the year of his death.

Cleopatra Mavhunga (Director; she/her) is a director, actor, and Studio Theatre’s directing apprentice for the 2023-2024 season. This reading of True West is her first professionally directed show. Her previous theater credits include assistant directing Problems Between Sisters; Love, Love, Love; Fat Ham; and Espejos: Clean at Studio Theatre, and directing Scapino!, Cave Canem, The Family Showcase, and Sweat at Yale University. She graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, concentrating on directing and earned distinction. cleopatra-mavhunga.com