Directing Shepard

Fritz Ertl sat down with George Ferencz to discuss Sam Shepard at New Dramatists in January of 1985. The conversation begins dominated by questions concerning the musicality of Shepard's earlier work and Ferencz's collaboration with Jazz legend Max Roach to stage them for the "ShepardSets" in the mid-eighties. The questions drift from the musical toward the more practical as Ferencz covers the nuts and bolts of directing a Shepard piece, his affinity for his newer work and the notion of Shepard's as "American myth maker". At the time of this recording, despite several successful Ferencz productions of Shepard's work, George Ferencz had never met, written or talked with Sam Shepard.