A dark satire by Pulitzer Prize winner and Academy Award nominee Sam Shepard, Curse of the Starving Class is at once hilarious and profound, frighteningly true, and delightfully surreal. In a newly revised staging by bold, young American director Peter DuBois, the new artistic director of Boston's Huntington Theatre Company, A.C.T. follows a malnourished and rather bizarre family searching for freedom, security, and their piece of the American pie. As their delusions of a better life fall apart around them, so does their farmhouse and the myth of America it embodies.
"Strikingly drawn characters, sharply comic dialogue, and rich poetic flights"
San Francisco Chronicle
"'Liquid dynamite' . . . brilliantly shrewd . . . outrageous"
San Jose Mercury News
"A superb cast . . . magnificently performed"
KGO Radio
"Stunning . . . a theatrical gem from top to bottom"
Contra Costa Times
This production features nudity and explicit language.
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Insight into the Play, the Playwright, and the Production
Each entertaining and informative issue of Words on Plays, A.C.T.'s in-depth performance guide series, contains a synopsis, advance program notes, study questions, and additional background information about the historical and cultural context of the play.
Words on Plays is available for purchase in the lobby of the theater during performances or online ($12 each + postage and handling). To subscribe to the full season ($70), call 415.749.2250.
Words on Plays Prepared by
Elizabeth Brodersen, Publications Editor
Michael Paller, Resident Dramaturg
Margot Melcon, Publications & Literary Associate
Ariel Franklin-Hudson, Publications & Literary Intern
Table of Contents
Photo courtesy of Hamish Reid
From the Program
Read a special feature article from the Curse program about Sam Shepard and the changes he made to the script for this production at A.C.T.
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Words on Plays is made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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Production Photos
 View production photos from Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class at A.C.T.
All photos by Kevin Berne.
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Podcasts
Listen to an NPR interview with Sam Shepard in which he discusses his film career, his personal travels, and the story of his own family that inspired many plays including Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class.
Playwright, actor, and director Sam Shepard in an interview with Terry Gross.
> Listen Online
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A.C.T. recently welcomed our newest company member—the lamb that will share the stage with the cast of Curse of the Starving Class.
While he awaits his big stage debut, the little guy affectionately nicknamed "A Half" (his mom goes by the tag "235") is living on the roof of the theater in a custom pen.
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Follow the lamb's journey to A.C.T. in a photo blog documenting his arrival at the theater.
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View a diagram of the pen that was specially created for the lamb and his mom to live in on the roof of the theater.
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Once he finishes his run in Curse of the Starving Class, the lamb will return home to RedHill Farms, an organic family ranch nestled in the rolling hills of West Marin.
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Be a Critic for a Night
A.C.T. recently awarded five lucky recipients the opportunity to be critic for a night and write a short review of Curse of the Starving Class. As the reviews continue to pour in, they'll be posted here.
I was totally absorbed for the entire 2 1/2 hours of the play, and that's saying a lot! The production was great, especially the set (yes!), the lighting—and the lamb. I was really impressed with the acting: each character, even the minor ones, was a fully created person, down to voice inflection and body movement. I particularly loved the way they delivered Sam Shepard's soaring soliloquies: I believed that these ordinary people would say those poetic words. The play is very dark and confronting—I felt stunned as I left the theater—yet the evening was leavened by many laugh-out-loud moments. The issues that the play addresses are still with us today —there were moments that could have come from the evening news rather that a 30-year-old play. Bravo, ACT!
Fred Rosenblum
Oakland, CA
ACT's revival of Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class is timely in light of the current economic climate of financial uncertainty for many Americans. The set, a barren, broken-down farmhouse and yard just reflects the family's poverty and despair. Every member of the family has a fantasy plan to escape from the situation . . . be it the mother's wish to travel to Europe or the teenage daughter's desire to escape to Mexico and work as a mechanic. Everyone constantly opens the barren refrigerator, looking for food that isn't there because they are too ineffectual to provide for themselves. One of the few times the refrigerator has anything to eat in it at all is when the drunken, over the top father fills it with . . . artichokes?? Nicole Lowrance as the daughter, Emma, was amazing, particularly in the scene when she has a tantrum completely covered with mud. The rest of the cast was also very good, including the cute lamb, a natural actor who seemed to know when to bleat.
Linda Oliver
Berkeley, CA
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