The Wrong Stuff: Sam Shepard’s Agent Demands Closing of All-Female True West

The Indigo Productions revival of Sam Shepard’s True West, which features women in the two leading roles of siblings who slowly begin to take on each other’s characteristics, has been ordered closed immediately by Shepard’s agent, Judy Boals. The show, which is directed by Thomas G. Waites and which began performances on March 3, is scheduled to run through March 21. It remains open as of this writing.

According to an Indigo Productions press release, the company received a call from Boals on March 5 demanding that the production be closed because Shepard would “never allow women to do this play.” In addition, producer Thomas Hays received a message from the show’s licensing organization, Samuel French, that the performance rights to the play would be pulled if the lead roles were being played by women.

“I’m absolutely stunned by the unfair, draconian tactics being employed by Mr. Shepard,” Hays is quoted in the release. “We paid for the rights to present this play in August 2003 and, in all the months leading up to the production, it was never communicated to me that we could not change the genders of the lead characters. That was simply not presented as a condition of production. And then, rather than seeing this terrific production and judging it on its merits, Shepard simply moves to pull the plug on us? It’s a slap in the face both to small theatres and to the rights of women everywhere.”

“It’s against the law to change a living writer’s intentions,” Boals told TheaterMania via phone this afternoon. “They’re advertising their production as ‘You’ve seen the brothers, now see the sisters.’ We’re not dealing with the war in Iraq here, but it’s so stupid to me. You need permission to do something like this.” Boals said that Shepard was personally unaware of the production but that she was acting on his behalf in demanding that the producers cease and desist. “As his representative, I know that he doesn’t want this to happen,” she said.

“We’re a small company just starting out, and closing early will put us out of business,” Hays’s statement continues. “Sam Shepard is forgetting the experimental theaters to which he owes his career, and it’s simply wrong for him to attempt to shut us down because we cast two roles with women instead of men.” For more information, visit www.ChickTrueWest.com.