True West by Sam Shepard directed by Susan Marie Rhea November 18-December 19, 2004 This American classic explores alternatives that might spring from the demented terrain of the California landscape.  Sons of a desert-dwelling alcoholic and a suburban wanderer seeking meaning in Alaska and Picasso clash over a film script.  Austin, the achiever, is a college graduate and a professional screenwriter.  He is staying at Mom’s near Los Angeles (instead of home with his own family) to work on a script he has sold to producer Sal Kimmer.  Lee, a demented, desert-dwelling petty thief, drops in.  He pitches his own idea for a movie to Kimmer, who then wants Austin to junk his bleak, modern-day California love story and write Lee’s archetypal-and trashy-western tale.    “Surely Shepard’s masterwork…It tells us a truth, as glimpsed by a 37-year old genius” N.Y. Post.  “It’s clear, funny, naturalistic.  It’s also opaque, terrifying, surrealistic.  If that sounds contradictory, you’re on to one aspect of Shepard’s winning genius, the ability to make you think you’re watching one thing while at the same time he’s presenting another.” S.F. Chronicle.  “Superb exploration of the contradictions and promises of American life.”  Palo Alto Times Tribune. Press Release Production Calendar What the Critics had to Say... Photographs Cast and Crew Press Release Production Calendar