Princeton Summer Theater presents "True West"

Published by New Jersey Stage
07/22/2026

Austin (Jordan Rashdan, left) appeals to his brother, Lee (Joseph McLean, right). Photo by  Lucy Shea

(PRINCETON, NJ) -- Princeton Summer Theater draws its 2026 season to a close with True West, the darkly comic drama by the Pulitzer Prize winning Sam Shepard. The production runs across two weekends from July 23 to August 1st at the Hamilton Murray Theater. True West is a poignant American classic, exploring the volatility of two brothers' reunion in their mother's house in California.

As the brothers navigate their differing lifepaths, memories, nostalgia, and longheld envies come to the surface. When a screenplay ignites the fuse of their relationship, the two brothers are left to reckon with who they are, can be, and will be to each other. This brilliant staple of contemporary drama, whose Off-Broadway debut featuring Tommy Lee Jones and Peter Boyle in 1980, is a visceral investigation of brotherhood, identity, and the American Dream. 

The cast includes: Jordan Rashdan (Austin), Joseph McLean (Lee), Shaelin McKenna (Mom), and Jacob Schorsch (Saul).

The show is directed by Wasif Sami, a theater director, choreographer, and socially-engaged artist based in New York. He's directed at Ensemble Studio Theater (Mime a Dozen) and Princeton Summer Theater (The Game's Afoot). He associate directed under Sarah Benson The Receptionist (Second Stage) and Tartuffe (New York Theatre Workshop). He's worked as an associate director, production assistant, and intern at institutions like New York Theatre Workshop, Second Stage, The Public, Tectonic Theater Project, and Clubbed Thumb. 

Performances run Thursday-Saturday at 7:30pm and Saturday-Sunday at 2:00pm until August 1st. For more information, click here. 

Princeton Summer Theater's children's show, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown by Clark Gesner from Charles M Schulz's comic strip "PEANUTS"  is currently running weekends until August 1st.  For more information, click here. 

Princeton Summer Theater is hosting three upcoming special events. 

The first is a talkback with R. N. Sandberg after Friday evening's performance of True West on July 24th. R. N. Sandberg is a playwright and director who for many years taught playwriting, acting and dramatic literature at Princeton University where he received the President's Award for Distinguished Teaching. His plays have been seen at theaters throughout the U.S. as well as in Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia and are available from Dramatic Publishing Company and Concord Theatricals. He has directed Greek tragedy, comic opera, Brecht, Chekhov and contemporary plays by writers as different as Lewis Black, Philip Kan Gotanda, Anna Deavere Smith and Wendy Wasserstein. For PST, he directed The Heidi Chronicles, Gaslight, and Pygmalion. He is the series editor and co-editor of each volume in Methuen's Global Theatre Anthologies. Learn more here. 

The second is a sneak peek performance and discussion of Technique, Sculpting, and Iterative Creativity in Intense Performance hosted by Labyrinth Books on July 28th. At 3:00pm on the lower level, join the cast of True West for a selected reading from the show and discussion about the behind-the-scenes magic! Learn from Jordan Rashdan (Austin) and Joseph McLean (Lee) about the technique and iterative process behind sculpting their intense brotherly relationship and brilliant performances. Attendance for the discussion is free, learn more here. 

The third is a talkback with Brian Eugenio Herrera after Thursday July 30th's evening performance of True West. Brian Eugenio Herrera is, by turns, a writer, teacher and scholar - presently based in New Jersey, but forever rooted in New Mexico. Brian's work, whether academic or artistic, examines the history of gender, sexuality and race within and through U.S. popular performance. He is author of The Latina/o Theatre Commons 2013 National Convening: A Narrative Report (HowlRound, 2015). With Stephanie Batiste and Robin Bernstein, Brian serves as co-editor of "Performances and American Cultures" series at NYU Press. Brian Eugenio Herrera is Associate Professor of Theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, where he is also a core faculty member in the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies and a faculty affiliate with the Programs in American Studies, Music Theater and Latino Studies. Learn more here. 

Princeton Summer Theater was founded by a group of Princeton University students in 1968, and has been an institution dedicated to training the up-and-coming leaders of the theater world ever since. Housed in the Hamilton Murray Theater on Princeton Campus, it has helped launch the careers of hundreds of young artists. Notable alumni include Tony award winners Bebe Neuwirth, Broadway writer Winnie Holzman, and Hollywood movie star William Hootkins.