Buried Child

Buried Child
Cover of Playbill for 1996 Broadway production
Written by	Sam Shepard
Date premiered	June 27, 1978
Place premiered	Magic Theatre, San Francisco
Original language	English
Genre	Drama
Setting	Illinois farmhouse, 1978

Buried Child is a play written by Sam Shepard that was first presented in 1978. It won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and launched Shepard to national fame as a playwright. The play depicts the fragmentation of the American nuclear family in a context of disappointment and disillusionment with American mythology and the American Dream, the 1970s rural economic slowdown, and the breakdown of traditional family structures and values. In 1979, Shepard also won the Obie Award for Playwriting. The Broadway revival in 1996 received five Tony nominations, including Best Play.