Jane Shepard (born 1958) is an American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

, filmmaker and

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

. Shepard was born in

Galesburg, Illinois Galesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, United States. The city is northwest of Peoria. At the 2010 census, its population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County and the principal city of the Galesburg Micropolitan Statistical ...

Early life

Shepard's father, Paul Shepard, was an American

environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

and author of the 13 books which have become landmark texts in the ecology movement. Shepard grew up in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

, and trained as an actor, graduating from the

American Academy of Dramatic Arts The American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) is a private performing arts conservatory with two locations, one in Manhattan and one in Los Angeles. The academy offers an associate degree in occupational studies and teaches drama and related art ...

in 1978 before turning to writing.

Works

She is best known for writing the

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original movie ''Freak City'', which was nominated for a

Writers Guild of America Award The Writers Guild of America Awards is an award for film, television, and radio writing including both fiction and non-fiction categories given by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America West since 1949. Eligibility Th ...

(2000) for Best Screenplay, Long Form; and for her book of plays ''Kickass Plays for Women''. Three of the short plays included in that collection made their

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

debut in New York in 2016 under the collective title "COMMENCING", produced by Ethikos Productions.

Awards

A member of Circle Repertory Company before its decline, her play productions in

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have included ''Eating the Dead''; ''Ducks Crossing''; and her one-woman autobiographical comedy ''The Idiot's Guide to the Brain'', for which she received the

Sloan Foundation Fellowship Sloan may refer to: *Sloan (surname) *MIT Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States *Sloan (band), a Canadian rock band * Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a major astronomical survey **Sloan Great Wall, a gala ...

for plays on the theme of science and technology. Other awards include the Frank Pisco Playwrighting Commission (2007); the

Robert Chesley Award The Robert Chesley Award was an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle to honour drama works by playwrights in the LGBT community. First presented in 1994, the award was named in memory of playwright Robert Chesley. The award was di ...

(2005); the Berrilla Kerr Playwrighting Award (2003); the Jane Chambers Award (2001) for COMMENCING; New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in both playwrighting and screenwriting (1996, 2002); and a Writer's Guild Foundation Fellowship (1985). She has written and directed a number of short films, including the 16mm film ''Nine'', which received an Honorable Mention Award from the Rochester Film Festival, and "Earning the Day" a comedy on dealing with our self-critical voices. Also a cartoonist, her drawings have appeared in such national publications as '' The American Review'', ''And Baby'', and ''Grand Slam'' baseball magazine, and on theatrical posters.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shepard, Jane 1958 births People from Galesburg, Illinois 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Living people