THEATRE | THURSDAYS–SUNDAYS, September 12–22 | $20–40
FUSION Theatre Company Presents TRUE WEST
FUSION opens its 2024–25 season with Sam Shepard’s TRUE WEST!
“Sam liked being on the move. He’d throw a fishing rod or an old acoustic guitar in the back seat of his truck, maybe take a dog, but for sure a notebook, and a pen, and a pile of books. He liked packing up and leaving just like that, going west. “—Patti Smith in “My Buddy (Sam Shepard)” The New Yorker
When to step down…when to step up…when to move close…when to run away? The human dance begins on September 12th with FUSION’s production of Sam Shepard’s award-winning play, TRUE WEST.
Premiering on Broadway in 2000, the play achieved singular note starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly who famously alternated in the lead roles. Ben Brantley of the NY Times wrote, “While True West has its cavernous depths, for sure, it also has a surface that is as accessible and entertaining as anything this playwright ever wrote…this production makes a persuasive case for True West as a great American play, arguably Mr. Shepard's finest.”
Set in the searing heat of the California desert, two brothers face off. Austin, son of a desert-dwelling alcoholic, is working on a screenplay that he’s sold to producer Saul Kimmer. Just when the deal looks sealed, Austin’s petty thief brother Lee stumbles back into his life. Never content to watch from the sidelines, Lee pitches his own film epiphany to Kimmer, a Western tale of trashy proportions. Will Hollywood bite? Will the American Dream last through the night? Shepard keeps you on the edge of your seat and your own desires as he exposes the cracks and tears in us all.
FUSION Co-founder Jacqueline Reid directs the production, starring Josh Heard, Ryan Jason Cook, Laurie Thomas, and Matthew Yde.
Performances will be Thursdays & Fridays at 7 PM, Saturdays at 2 PM & 7 PM, and Sundays at 3 PM at FUSION | The Cell.
FUSION | The Cell
700 1st. St. NW
Downtown ABQ
General Admission: $40 | Seniors over 65: $35 | Students: $20
ENTER THE TRUE WEST WORLD:
SAM SHEPARD was an American playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director. He wrote forty-four plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. As the eldest son of a US Army officer (and WWII bomber pilot), Shepard spent his early childhood moving from base to base around the US until finally settling in Duarte, CA. While at high school he began acting and writing and worked as a ranch hand in Chino. He graduated high school in 1961 and then spent a year studying agriculture at Mount San Antonio Junior College, intending to become a vet.
In 1962, though, a touring theater company, the Bishop's Company Repertory Players, visited the town and he joined up and left home to tour with them. He spent nearly two years with the company and eventually settled in New York where he began writing plays, first performing with an obscure off-off-Broadway group but eventually gaining recognition for his writing and winning prestigious OBIE awards (Off-Broadway) three years running.
Shepard’s works of the mid-1970s showed a heightening of earlier techniques and themes. In Killer’s Head (produced 1975), for example, the rambling monologue, a Shepard stock-in-trade, blends horror and banality in a murderer’s last thoughts before electrocution; Angel City (produced 1976) depicts the destructive machinery of the Hollywood entertainment industry; and Suicide in B-flat (produced 1976) exploits the potentials of music as an expression of character.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Shepard applied his unconventional dramatic vision to a more conventional dramatic form, the family tragedy. Curse of the Starving Class (produced 1977; film 1994), the Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child (produced 1978), and True West (produced 1980) are linked thematically in their examination of troubled and tempestuous blood relationships in a fragmented society.
Actors' Equity Association (AEA), founded in 1913, represents more than 45,000 actors and stage managers in the United States. Equity seeks to advance, promote and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions, providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO, and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. The Equity emblem is our mark of excellence.