Profile Theatre Presents TRUE WEST, Now thru 11/23

PROFILE THEATRE opens the final play of the 2014 Sam Shepard Season, True West. Performances begin tonight, November 6 and run through November 23, 2014 on the Alder Stage at Artists Repertory Theatre. Tickets are currently on sale at Profiletheatre.org.

Sam Shepard's True West follows a few tumultuous days in the lives of brothers Lee and Austin, examining their relationship as they manage fraternal conflicts through brutal, and sometimes disturbingly funny, means.

Many critics see this work as one in Sam Shepard's "family quintet." Within the 2014 Sam Shepard Season, Profile will have presented all five of the "family quintet;" a film screening of Fool For Love (November 2013), staged readings of A Lie of the Mind (July 2014) and Curse of the Starving Class (October 2014), and main stage productions of Buried Child (June 2014) and True West (November 2014). "With this [True West] perhaps his most personal play of all, Shepard let's us in the front door, past his own family, past memories of lost love, and directly into his own mind. It takes courage and vulnerability to put yourself so wholly up for examination," says Artistic Director Adriana Baer.

Cast and Creative Team Directed by Adriana Baer, True West features Nick Ferrucci, Ben Newman, Duffy Epstein and Diane Kondrat. Scenic design is by Alan Schanke with costume design by Sara Ludeman, lighting design by Kristeen Willis Crosser and props design by Erica Benoit. The stage manager is D Westerholm.

Sam Shepard was born in 1943 in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He worked as a farmhand and musician before moving to New York to begin his career as a playwright. His first productions, one-acts Cowboys and The Rock Garden, were performed at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery. His first full-length play, La Turista, was performed at the American Place Theatre and won an Obie Award in 1967. Mr. Shepard spent several seasons with La MaMa and Caffe Cino in New York and as playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. In 1979, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Buried Child. His screenplay for Paris, Texas won the Golden Palm Award at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. In 1986, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1992 he received their Gold Medal for Drama. Mr. Shepard is also a director and film actor.

Photo by David Kinder

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