Dublin's Abbey Theatre to Premiere New Shepard Play Starring Stephen Rea

Dublin's Abbey Theatre will present the world premiere Sam Shepard's newest play Kicking a Dead Horse, according to Variety. Directed by the author, the production will star Stephen Rea and open on March 15, 2007.

Shepard, a playwright, actor, screenwriter and director, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for Buried Child. His other plays include Angel City, Curse of the Starving Class, Killer's Head, Action, The Mad Dog Blues, Cowboy Mouth, True West, The Tooth of Crime, Operation Sidewinder, Fool for Love, A Lie of the Mind, Simpatico, The Rock Garden, Tongues, God of Hell and The Late Henry Moss. As an actor, he received an Academy Award nomination for his supporting performance in The Right Stuff. His other film credits include Renaldo and Clara, Days of Heaven, Resurrection, Raggedy Man, Frances, Country, Crimes of the Heart, Baby Boom, Steel Magnolias, Defenseless, Thunderheart, Bright Angel, Voyager, The Pelican Brief, Snow Falling on Cedars, Hamlet, All the Pretty Horses, The Pledge, Swordfish, Black Hawk Down, The Notebook and the feature adaptation of his play Fool for Love.

Irish actor Rea is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated performance in Neil Jordan's 1992 film The Crying Game. That same year, he appeared on the West End and Broadway stages in Someone to Watch Over Me, for which he earned a Best Actor Tony nomination and a Theatre World Award. His other stage credits include Playboy of the Western World, Tales of the Vienna Woods, Cyrano de Bergerac and Endgame. He also performed in or directed all of the productions of the Field Day Theatre, a company he and Irish playwright Brian Friel founded in 1980 to bring theater to rural communities across Ireland. Rea's many film credits include Interview with the Vampire, Michael Collins, The Butcher Boy, The End of the Affair, Pret-a-Porter, Fever Pitch and V for Vendetta.