This dissertation is a critical introduction to Sam Shepard's playwriting career. Chapter One describes the cultural and theatrical milieu of Off-Off-Broadway in the early 1960's and discusses the theoretical foundations and intellectual background for Shepard's dramatic conceptions in the work of five Continental dramatists: Luigi Pirandello, Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht, Eugene Ionesco, and Samuel Beckett; and two American theatre groups: The Living Theatre and The Open Theatre. Chapter Two analyzes five of Shepard's non-realistic plays: Cowboys #2 (1967), Chicago (1966), La Turista (1967), The Tooth of Crime (1972), and Action (1975). Chapter Three examines Shepard's quartet of domestic dramas: Curse of the Starving Class (1976), Buried Child (1978), True West (1981), and Fool For Love (1983) Shepard's four major screen roles in Days of Heaven (1978), Resurrection (1980), Frances (1982), and The Right Stuff (1983), are briefly discussed in an afterword. An appendix contains a chronology of Shepard's career that highlights the major dates in his professional life, catalogues the major productions of his plays, and offers pertinent biographical data. The dissertation founds Shepard's drama in a dramatic tradition and demonstrates an organic development in the plays from metatheatre through personal expressionism, social expressionism, absurdism, and modified realism