ShepardFest 2026

Overview

Experience the world's only festival dedicated to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actor, and filmmaker Sam Shepard during ShepardFest, at The Waterworks. ShepardFest brings together artists, scholars, students, and audiences for five days of theatre, film, lectures, readings, and conversation celebrating Shepard's enduring influence on American culture. The festival features a full-scale production of Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Buried Child, a staged reading of Kicking a Dead Horse, educational lectures on theatre design and dramaturgy, screenings of Thunderheart and Days of Heaven, and appearances by acclaimed Shepard biographer Robert M. Dowling.

Festival Artistic Director Raines Carr stars alongside Brooke West Carr in Kicking a Dead Horse, while director Mary Claire Branton leads a cast of regional talent in Buried Child. Dowling, author of Coyote: The Dramatic Lives of Sam Shepard, will participate in discussions, talkbacks, and book signings throughout the festival.

All events take place at The Waterworks,184 San Marco Ave., St. Augustine. www.shepardfest.org