The Sand Castle marks an early-career effort from Lanford Wilson, who later went on to write several plays that would become household names in the contemporary American pantheon, including Burn This, Fifth of July, Hot L Baltimore and 1979's Pulitzer Prize winning Talley's Folly.

Wilson penned The Sand Castle well before he became a star in New York's Off-Off-Broadway movement, and the play blends the same humanist streak and attention to heartfelt characters that mark his most famous work with the bold experimentation of a young writer at play. The Renolds family of Wilson's creation sings, addresses the audience and forgets their lines, creating a vibrant metatheatricality that makes the play's shattering ending all the more poignant.