The Sam Shepard Festival
Founder & Artistic Director: Raines Carr
Celebrating the life and work of Sam Shepard through theatre, film, scholarship, and conversation.
ShepardFest: The Sam Shepard Festival is an interdisciplinary celebration of one of America's most influential playwrights, bringing together theatre artists, scholars, students, filmmakers, and audiences to explore the life, work, and enduring influence of Sam Shepard.Founded in St. Augustine, Florida, ShepardFest was created around a simple idea: Sam Shepard's work is too rich to experience through theatre alone. His plays, films, music, and writing invite conversations about family, identity, mythology, violence, place, and the complicated idea of what it means to be American.
As Founder and Artistic Director, Raines Carr provides the festival's artistic vision and oversees its programming and development. ShepardFest brings together full theatrical productions, staged readings, films, lectures, scholarship, and conversations with artists and scholars. The festival is designed not simply to preserve Shepard's legacy, but to keep his work in conversation with new generations of artists and audiences.
A Festival in Motion
ShepardFest began as an intimate gathering at Flagler College and has continued to evolve while remaining rooted in St. Augustine. Carr's vision is to develop the festival into a distinctive national destination for artists, scholars, students, and audiences interested in Sam Shepard and the broader questions raised by his work.
The festival's future is intentionally interdisciplinary and collaborative—creating opportunities for theatre artists, academics, filmmakers, designers, musicians, and audiences to encounter Shepard's work from different perspectives.
“Rather than trying to define Sam Shepard's legacy, our role is to create opportunities for people to continually discover and rediscover his work.”
— Raines Carr, BroadwayWorld
In 2026, ShepardFest returned to St. Augustine with a full-scale production of Buried Child, a staged reading of Kicking a Dead Horse, lectures on theatre design and dramaturgy, film screenings, and appearances by Shepard biographer Robert M. Dowling. The festival's multidisciplinary approach reflects Carr's belief that Shepard's work can—and should—be experienced in many different ways.
Learn More
ShepardFest: The Sam Shepard Festival
Visit the official ShepardFest website to learn more about the festival, its history, programming, and future.
Read the BroadwayWorld Interview
Founding Artistic Director Raines Carr on ShepardFest, the World's Only Sam Shepard Festival
Read the BroadwayWorld interview
Read the JaxPlays Feature
ShepardFest 2026 Celebrates Sam Shepard With Theatre, Film and Conversation in St. Augustine
Photos from the main stage production of Buried Child at Shepardfest 2026
Directed by Mary Claire Branton- Photos by Cameron Hodges
Photos from the staged reading of Kicking a Dead Horse at Shepardfest 2026
Directed and starring by Brooke and Raines Carr - Photos by Cameron Hodges
Photos from the main stage production of The Late Henry Moss at Shepardfest 2021
Directed by Raines Carr - Photos by Mike Kitai
