Molly Louise Shepard
Encyclopedia
Molly Louise Shepard is a published dramatic author, Off-Off-Broadway
playwright, and produced screen writer. She received her B.A.
in theatre from the University of Texas at Dallas
.
Shepard's two-act Southern Gothic piece, Tabula Rasa
, was produced by the Judith Shakespeare Company at the Phil Bosakowski Theatre in New York City. An excerpt from her short play DOG, was published internationally in BEST MEN'S MONOLOGUES OF 1998. Her screenplay of that same piece won a grant from the Irving Community Television Network, went to the USA Film Festival
, and was featured on PBS (Dallas). Shepard's work has been produced not only in New York, but also has been produced in Dallas
, Fort Worth
, and Austin, Texas
, and New Orleans, Louisiana
.
. Eugene, "Gene" was a registered Civil Engineer
in the state of Texas. Gene had been with the Army Corps of Engineers
, and graduated from The University of Texas at Austin after World War II. Jewell, "Julie" was a WASP
(WAC
) pilot in World War II and played semi-pro softball
in Washington, D.C. in the 1940s. Molly had three older siblings.
In 1964, Gene and the family were transferred to Titusville, Florida
through DOW
. DOW was involved in the storage of the rocket fuel for the NASA
space program at that time, and Gene was one of their key engineers. Molly attended Coquina Elementary while in Titusville. There, Molly enjoyed going to the beach with her family, climbing the grapefruit tree in their front yard, and learning to do all the Mod 1960s dances such as the swim, the jerk, the pony and the monkey while watching American Bandstand
with her older siblings.
In 1968, the family was transferred through DOW to Lake Jackson, Texas
. There Molly attended A.P. Beutal Elementary and Lake Jackson Junior High. Molly always loved to draw, paint, sing, dance, do needlecrafts and read. By age eleven, she had read the complete works of A.A. Milne, Lewis Carroll
, Laura Ingalls Wilder
and many other classical writers. She took piano lessons, sang in choir, acted in plays, took formal art training, and even took formal riding and etiquette classes. Her father had been a "Renaissance man
" and Molly was encouraged by both Gene and Julie to study all of the arts.
In 1971, Gene retired from DOW and took a job as an executive with the TDC
in Huntsville, Texas
. There Molly attended Huntsville Intermediate School and High School, in addition to attending Sam Houston State University
for two years, first as an RTF major, then as a drama major. Molly starred as "Cherie" in Bus Stop
and "Domina" in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
, among other plays, while at Sam Houston State. Molly was an "artsy" type who at age eleven was listening to Duke Ellington
's Ellington's Indigos, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
and American in Paris, and Cleo Laine
and Ray Charles
' Porgy and Bess
. Molly had always grown up an hour's drive from the beach, (the Gulf of Mexico
), and so living in a community tucked in the middle of a pine forest was alien to her.
Though Huntsville was beautiful, with its Victorian architecture
and home spun appeal, Molly yearned for bigger horizons, and so in 1980, she jumped at the chance when given the opportunity to attend The University of Texas at Dallas, and to live with her eldest sister there in Richardson, Texas. Molly transferred and soon was having leads starring as "April" in Company
, "Mrs. Webb" in Our Town
, on the main stage; as well as "Carla" in Kennedy's Children and other pivotal roles in workshop productions there on the UTD Campus. Molly also worked tech on a number of her collegiate shows, from being prop mistress for Hamlet
to building sets for FUNNY...FORUM to making corsets from scratch for OUR TOWN. In 1982, Molly graduated college with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre, and while working day jobs at such interesting employers as the Dallas Cowboys
Football Club for The Dallas Cowboys Weekly, she had a number of starring or originating roles in the Dallas theatre scene such as "The Ghost of Christmas Past" in EBENEZER SCROOGE; "Sissy" in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Southwest Premiere at New Arts Theatre); "Helga" in Frankenstein
; "Alais" in The Lion in Winter
, "Frenchie" in CHARLES HARALSON SHOOTS HIS CORVETTE SOMEWHERE NEAR VAN HORN (at the Theatre Gallery / Deep Ellum), "Cynthia" in BABY WITH THE BATHWATER (Calm Eddy's) and many others in the Lower Greenville, West End, Dallas
and Deep Ellum
portions of Dallas. It was while working on CHARLES HARALSON... that Molly began doing publicity for local playwrights, helping to bring them to regional fame during that time period. In working with a number of emerging playwrights, Molly helped develop their new works, either acting for them, assistant directing for them, or working tech for their shows.
In 1986, Molly's second oldest sister died of cancer. Six months after her death, Molly had a daughter, Madison. It was at this time that Molly moved to Austin, Texas, to be closer to her family, who lived there. Molly even dabbled in a little acting her first year in Austin, and The Austin Chronicle stated her vocals were "Creamy Smooth but oh, so soulful" for the Hyde Park Theatre
review she starred in, GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADWAY, in which she had six solos as a vocalist including "Stormy Weather", "Memories" (from Cats), "Can't Help Lovin' that Man of Mine", and other classic jazz and Broadway vocal standards.
Molly found that working a full time job, raising Madison by herself and trying to act was just too difficult, and so she decided to quit acting which was an end to a lifelong dream. Since Molly was no longer able to act on the stage, she turned her hand to playwriting. Her first play MADNESS, is still unfinished. In 1987, her second play, GRASSHOPPER SUMMER, a dark comedy about love and death, was picked up for a full mount production through a series of staged readings with the Capitol City Playwright's group, based on the first act alone, to be produced and directed by Austinite Jim Fritzler's critically acclaimed Big State Productions. GRASSHOPPER SUMMER was also submitted by Big State to be nominated through the Scott Theatre in Austin to the Kennedy Center competition.
During this time, Molly quit her job at Dell Computer, and became a Permissions Correspondent for Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Publishers, a subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. In 1989, Molly transferred to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, College Division in Fort Worth, and within a short year, was promoted from Photo / Permissions Editor to Senior Photo / Permissions Editor, by her third year with the company. During this time, she was artistic director at the Tarrant County Arts Alliance Theatre, as featured in The Dallas Morning News article, "A Fledgling Takes Flight" which graced the cover of the "Arts" section for that newspaper.
Molly continued working with emerging artists, moving back to Dallas in 1991, to Deep Ellum, where she was a partner in an art gallery / performance art space called SKY. At Sky, not only did Molly produce and direct her play, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE HENRY MILLER; AND THE NEXT MARILYN MONROE, (which had been workshopped while Molly lived in Austin) to critical acclaim and "S.R.O." ("Standing Room Only) houses, but she also gave opportunity to emerging Texas artists such as Trippy Thompson and Stephen Prince by featuring their paintings in SKY Gallery, replete with art openings. "Is this a 'Wet Paint' show?" asked one guest of an art opening there at SKY, "Man, I love it!" In New Orleans, Molly Louise Shepard's THE MAN WHO WOULD BE HENRY MILLER; AND THE NEXT MARILYN MONROE opened the 1991 Southern Repertory New Theatre Festival in New Orleans, juried by David Wheeler
, Resident Director of the American Repertory Theatre
and Dean, Arts/Humanities, Harvard. Wheeler said Molly Louise Shepard "brilliantly weds erotic fantasy and sexual struggle" in her portrayal of two characters who try to take on the personalities of their heroes in the play and lose sight of themselves and their relationship in the process.
By the mid-nineties, Molly had gone freelance as a Photo Editor, and had moved to the historical Oak Cliff
portion of Dallas, which was the first suburb of the city a hundred years prior, and had started out as an artist's colony in the 19th century called "La Reunion
". Molly there wrote INTERLOPER, which was produced by the Fort Worth Theatre at the Scott. In the late nineties, Molly's short work, DOG, about a girl who kills herself as a result of literally being "teased to death" due to a prolonged period of peer abuse, was both published internationally in BEST MEN'S MONOLOGUES OF 1998, and made into an art film which was shown on PBS and featured at The USA Film Festival.
During that time, Molly's Southern Gothic
full length two act, TABULA RASA was being given staged readings throughout the United States, from Jim Fritzler's theatrical troupe in Austin, Texas; to The Pocket Theatre in Dallas, to The Dramatist's Guild in NYC, through The Judith Shakespeare Company. It was at the NYC Judith Shakespeare reading that a private backer wrote a check for forty thousand dollars to see that TABULA RASA was produced off-Broadway. The play was performed through Judith Shakespeare Company at the Phil Bosakowski Theatre at Primary Stages in New York City to critical acclaim.
The play starred Eve Holbrook, and Hal Holbrook
, her father, was in attendance opening night. "You wrote this? How old are you? You aren't old enough to have written this?" said Hal to Molly. "I'm thirty-six, that's old enough, isn't it?" asked Molly with a smile. TABULA RASA is a story of a National Geographic style of photo journalist who has come home from New York City on assignment to shoot the Victorian architecture of her small East Texas home town, and how she finds value in the memories left behind in such a beautiful place, even though she felt limited in her youth by growing up in a small town.
The play explores the subtle acts of racism still in effect today, even after the civil rights movement of the sixties. It is a spiritual play about "Toxie", an 80-year-old African American woman in her last days, as she prepares to join her family on the "other side" - that is as soon as she has dispensed with her "one and only earthly treasure", a vintage photograph, with the help of "Thadia", the photographer as she appears in the play in her youth. It is a "memory" play, where grown "Thadia" narrates, as the young "Thadia" helps the audience explore the youth that brought her to New York City to become a photographer.
"The lyricism and spirituality of TABULA RASA resembled an August Wilson play" said The Off-Broadway Review. The Dallas Examiner said, "She's a Southern Gothic writer, reminiscent of William Faulkner
...Beth Henley
, and Tennessee Williams
, in Great Company. Molly Louise Shepard has truly written a 'gem'."
Discouraged by the limitations presented her as a regional playwright, Molly moved with her family to Los Angeles in 2001. Unfortunately, although the move was planned at least a year in advance, it coincided directly within the time frame of 9/11, so that not only did the Southern Gothic playwright and her family go through culture shock at being plunged into the society of one of the largest and most culturally diverse cities in the world, Los Angeles, where over 50 languages are spoken; but they moved during a great time of intesified national security for the United States.
During that time, her daughter, Madison, who wrote and directed a film called Black Lipstick at age 14, was flown home repeatedly for film festivals featuring her piece alongside grownup film makers. Black Lipstick is a short film about the persecution of a "goth" teen by her Principal, teacher and fellow students, and how she learns to fight back for her individuality through the use of words. BLACK LIPSTICK was shown at Vista's Film Festival, The Deep Ellum Film Festival, and The Long on Shorts Festival at the Horchow Auditorium at Dallas Museum of Art
.
Though accepted at Booker T. Washington High School for the Arts in Dallas, Madison chose to attend Los Angeles County High School for the Arts
, alma mater to Jenna Elfman
, Josh Groban
and many others. After high school, Madison attended the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama
in London, England, alma mater to Sir Laurence Olivier and Judi Dench
. In 2003, Molly married her longtime sweetheart, Dan Berke, and the family settled down in the beautiful Toluca Lake area just outside Los Angeles, which is just under an hour's drive from the beach. Molly served as developmental editor for the benchmark arts and crafts series: DESIGNING WITH and QUOTE, UNQUOTE book and calendar series from 2003 to 2008 for Autumn Leaves. In 2008, she accepted a position as editor for McGraw-Hill, and was their employee until 2010. Molly is currently writing a Hollywood murder mystery surrounding the death of 1930s screen siren Thelma Todd
, among a myriad of new screenplays, and enjoys working as a freelance editor by day.
Off-Off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway theatrical productions in New York City are those in theatres that are smaller than Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres. Off-Off-Broadway theaters are often defined as theaters that have fewer than 100 seats, though the term can be used for any show in the New York City area that...
playwright, and produced screen writer. She received her B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in theatre from the University of Texas at Dallas
University of Texas at Dallas
The University of Texas at Dallas, also referred to as UT Dallas or UTD, is a public research university in the University of Texas System. The main campus is in the heart of the Richardson, Texas, Telecom Corridor, north of downtown Dallas...
.
Shepard's two-act Southern Gothic piece, Tabula Rasa
Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...
, was produced by the Judith Shakespeare Company at the Phil Bosakowski Theatre in New York City. An excerpt from her short play DOG, was published internationally in BEST MEN'S MONOLOGUES OF 1998. Her screenplay of that same piece won a grant from the Irving Community Television Network, went to the USA Film Festival
USA Film Festival
-History:Founded in 1971, the USA Film Festival has presented the world, national and regional premieres of thousands of studio and independent feature films and short experimental, animated, documentary and dramatic films....
, and was featured on PBS (Dallas). Shepard's work has been produced not only in New York, but also has been produced in Dallas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, Fort Worth
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
, and Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, and New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
.
Biography
Molly was born to Eugene N. and Jewell W. Shepard in 1960, in Houston, TexasHouston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
. Eugene, "Gene" was a registered Civil Engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
in the state of Texas. Gene had been with the Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
, and graduated from The University of Texas at Austin after World War II. Jewell, "Julie" was a WASP
Women Airforce Service Pilots
The Women Airforce Service Pilots and its predecessor groups the Women's Flying Training Detachment and the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron were pioneering organizations of civilian female pilots employed to fly military aircraft under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces...
(WAC
Women's Army Corps
The Women's Army Corps was the women's branch of the US Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps on 15 May 1942 by Public Law 554, and converted to full status as the WAC in 1943...
) pilot in World War II and played semi-pro softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
in Washington, D.C. in the 1940s. Molly had three older siblings.
In 1964, Gene and the family were transferred to Titusville, Florida
Titusville, Florida
Titusville is a city in Brevard County, Florida in the United States. It is the county seat of Brevard County. Nicknamed Space City, USA, Titusville is on the Indian River, west of Merritt Island and the Kennedy Space Center and south-southwest of the Canaveral National Seashore...
through DOW
Dow
-People:*Herbert Henry Dow , founder of Dow Chemical Company*Charles Dow , founder of Dow Jones & Co*James R. Dow, professor of German language*Paula Dow , 58th Attorney General of New Jersey*Neal S...
. DOW was involved in the storage of the rocket fuel for the NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
space program at that time, and Gene was one of their key engineers. Molly attended Coquina Elementary while in Titusville. There, Molly enjoyed going to the beach with her family, climbing the grapefruit tree in their front yard, and learning to do all the Mod 1960s dances such as the swim, the jerk, the pony and the monkey while watching American Bandstand
American Bandstand
American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...
with her older siblings.
In 1968, the family was transferred through DOW to Lake Jackson, Texas
Lake Jackson, Texas
Lake Jackson is a city in Brazoria County, Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. As of a 2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city population was 27,614....
. There Molly attended A.P. Beutal Elementary and Lake Jackson Junior High. Molly always loved to draw, paint, sing, dance, do needlecrafts and read. By age eleven, she had read the complete works of A.A. Milne, Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder was an American author who wrote the Little House series of books based on her childhood in a pioneer family...
and many other classical writers. She took piano lessons, sang in choir, acted in plays, took formal art training, and even took formal riding and etiquette classes. Her father had been a "Renaissance man
Renaissance Man
Renaissance Man is a 1994 comedy film, directed by Penny Marshall, starring Danny DeVito, Gregory Hines, James Remar, and Ed Begley, Jr. It also features Mark Wahlberg in one of his earliest roles....
" and Molly was encouraged by both Gene and Julie to study all of the arts.
In 1971, Gene retired from DOW and took a job as an executive with the TDC
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is a department of the government of the state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails and private correctional facilities, funding and certain...
in Huntsville, Texas
Huntsville, Texas
Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas, United States. The population was 35,508 at the 2010 census. It is the center of the Huntsville micropolitan area....
. There Molly attended Huntsville Intermediate School and High School, in addition to attending Sam Houston State University
Sam Houston State University
Sam Houston State University was founded in 1879 and is the third oldest public institution of higher learning in the State of Texas. It is located in Huntsville, Texas. It is one of the oldest purpose-built institutions for the instruction of teachers west of the Mississippi River and the first...
for two years, first as an RTF major, then as a drama major. Molly starred as "Cherie" in Bus Stop
Bus Stop (play)
Bus Stop is a 1955 play by William Inge. The 1956 film is only loosely based upon it.-Characters:Bus Stop is a drama, with romantic and some comedic elements. It is set in a diner in rural Kansas, about 20 miles west of Kansas City, Missouri during a snowstorm from which bus passengers must take...
and "Domina" in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart....
, among other plays, while at Sam Houston State. Molly was an "artsy" type who at age eleven was listening to Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
's Ellington's Indigos, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
and American in Paris, and Cleo Laine
Cleo Laine
Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth, DBE is a jazz singer and an actress, noted for her scat singing and vocal range...
and Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
' Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
. Molly had always grown up an hour's drive from the beach, (the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
), and so living in a community tucked in the middle of a pine forest was alien to her.
Though Huntsville was beautiful, with its Victorian architecture
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
and home spun appeal, Molly yearned for bigger horizons, and so in 1980, she jumped at the chance when given the opportunity to attend The University of Texas at Dallas, and to live with her eldest sister there in Richardson, Texas. Molly transferred and soon was having leads starring as "April" in Company
Company (musical)
Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....
, "Mrs. Webb" in Our Town
Our Town
Our Town is a three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder. It is a character story about an average town's citizens in the early twentieth century as depicted through their everyday lives...
, on the main stage; as well as "Carla" in Kennedy's Children and other pivotal roles in workshop productions there on the UTD Campus. Molly also worked tech on a number of her collegiate shows, from being prop mistress for Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
to building sets for FUNNY...FORUM to making corsets from scratch for OUR TOWN. In 1982, Molly graduated college with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre, and while working day jobs at such interesting employers as the Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...
Football Club for The Dallas Cowboys Weekly, she had a number of starring or originating roles in the Dallas theatre scene such as "The Ghost of Christmas Past" in EBENEZER SCROOGE; "Sissy" in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Southwest Premiere at New Arts Theatre); "Helga" in Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
; "Alais" in The Lion in Winter
The Lion in Winter
-Synopsis:Set during Christmas 1183 at Henry II of England's château in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he has had imprisoned since 1173...
, "Frenchie" in CHARLES HARALSON SHOOTS HIS CORVETTE SOMEWHERE NEAR VAN HORN (at the Theatre Gallery / Deep Ellum), "Cynthia" in BABY WITH THE BATHWATER (Calm Eddy's) and many others in the Lower Greenville, West End, Dallas
West End, Dallas
The West End Historic District is an area in northwest downtown Dallas, Texas , generally north of Commerce, east of I-35E, west of Lamar and south of Woodall Rodgers Freeway. It is south of Victory Park, west of the Arts, City Center, and Main Street districts, and north of the Government and...
and Deep Ellum
Deep Ellum
Deep Ellum is an arts and entertainment district near downtown in east Dallas, Texas . It lies directly east of the elevated I-45/US 75 freeway and extends to Exposition Avenue, connected to downtown by, from north to south, Pacific, Elm, Main, Commerce, and Canton streets...
portions of Dallas. It was while working on CHARLES HARALSON... that Molly began doing publicity for local playwrights, helping to bring them to regional fame during that time period. In working with a number of emerging playwrights, Molly helped develop their new works, either acting for them, assistant directing for them, or working tech for their shows.
In 1986, Molly's second oldest sister died of cancer. Six months after her death, Molly had a daughter, Madison. It was at this time that Molly moved to Austin, Texas, to be closer to her family, who lived there. Molly even dabbled in a little acting her first year in Austin, and The Austin Chronicle stated her vocals were "Creamy Smooth but oh, so soulful" for the Hyde Park Theatre
Hyde Park Theatre
Founded in 1992, Hyde Park Theatre is an arts centers in Austin, Texas, that has produced over 50 world and regional premieres. In addition to a mainstage season, HPT curates the largest performance festival in the Southwest, FronteraFest.The quality of their work has been acknowledged by 46...
review she starred in, GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADWAY, in which she had six solos as a vocalist including "Stormy Weather", "Memories" (from Cats), "Can't Help Lovin' that Man of Mine", and other classic jazz and Broadway vocal standards.
Molly found that working a full time job, raising Madison by herself and trying to act was just too difficult, and so she decided to quit acting which was an end to a lifelong dream. Since Molly was no longer able to act on the stage, she turned her hand to playwriting. Her first play MADNESS, is still unfinished. In 1987, her second play, GRASSHOPPER SUMMER, a dark comedy about love and death, was picked up for a full mount production through a series of staged readings with the Capitol City Playwright's group, based on the first act alone, to be produced and directed by Austinite Jim Fritzler's critically acclaimed Big State Productions. GRASSHOPPER SUMMER was also submitted by Big State to be nominated through the Scott Theatre in Austin to the Kennedy Center competition.
During this time, Molly quit her job at Dell Computer, and became a Permissions Correspondent for Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in secondary schools. Holt, Rinehart and Winston was a division of Harcourt Education...
Publishers, a subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. In 1989, Molly transferred to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, College Division in Fort Worth, and within a short year, was promoted from Photo / Permissions Editor to Senior Photo / Permissions Editor, by her third year with the company. During this time, she was artistic director at the Tarrant County Arts Alliance Theatre, as featured in The Dallas Morning News article, "A Fledgling Takes Flight" which graced the cover of the "Arts" section for that newspaper.
Molly continued working with emerging artists, moving back to Dallas in 1991, to Deep Ellum, where she was a partner in an art gallery / performance art space called SKY. At Sky, not only did Molly produce and direct her play, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE HENRY MILLER; AND THE NEXT MARILYN MONROE, (which had been workshopped while Molly lived in Austin) to critical acclaim and "S.R.O." ("Standing Room Only) houses, but she also gave opportunity to emerging Texas artists such as Trippy Thompson and Stephen Prince by featuring their paintings in SKY Gallery, replete with art openings. "Is this a 'Wet Paint' show?" asked one guest of an art opening there at SKY, "Man, I love it!" In New Orleans, Molly Louise Shepard's THE MAN WHO WOULD BE HENRY MILLER; AND THE NEXT MARILYN MONROE opened the 1991 Southern Repertory New Theatre Festival in New Orleans, juried by David Wheeler
David F. Wheeler (director)
David Wheeler is a director of theatre, film and television. He was Founder and Artistic Director of the Theatre Company of Boston from 1963 - 1975. Wheeler has also taught directing and theatre at Harvard University, Boston University, and Brandeis University...
, Resident Director of the American Repertory Theatre
American Repertory Theatre
The American Repertory Theater is a professional not-for-profit theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1980 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to neglected works of the past; and to established classical texts...
and Dean, Arts/Humanities, Harvard. Wheeler said Molly Louise Shepard "brilliantly weds erotic fantasy and sexual struggle" in her portrayal of two characters who try to take on the personalities of their heroes in the play and lose sight of themselves and their relationship in the process.
By the mid-nineties, Molly had gone freelance as a Photo Editor, and had moved to the historical Oak Cliff
Oak Cliff
Oak Cliff is a community in Dallas, Texas, United States that was formerly a separate town located in Dallas County; Dallas annexed Oak Cliff in 1903...
portion of Dallas, which was the first suburb of the city a hundred years prior, and had started out as an artist's colony in the 19th century called "La Reunion
La Reunion (Dallas)
La Réunion was a socialist utopian community formed in 1855 by French, Belgian, and Swiss colonists near the forks of the Trinity River in Texas, USA. The Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas is about three miles east of the colony site. The founders of the community were inspired by the utopian...
". Molly there wrote INTERLOPER, which was produced by the Fort Worth Theatre at the Scott. In the late nineties, Molly's short work, DOG, about a girl who kills herself as a result of literally being "teased to death" due to a prolonged period of peer abuse, was both published internationally in BEST MEN'S MONOLOGUES OF 1998, and made into an art film which was shown on PBS and featured at The USA Film Festival.
During that time, Molly's Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction unique to American literature that takes place exclusively in the American South. It resembles its parent genre in that it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot...
full length two act, TABULA RASA was being given staged readings throughout the United States, from Jim Fritzler's theatrical troupe in Austin, Texas; to The Pocket Theatre in Dallas, to The Dramatist's Guild in NYC, through The Judith Shakespeare Company. It was at the NYC Judith Shakespeare reading that a private backer wrote a check for forty thousand dollars to see that TABULA RASA was produced off-Broadway. The play was performed through Judith Shakespeare Company at the Phil Bosakowski Theatre at Primary Stages in New York City to critical acclaim.
The play starred Eve Holbrook, and Hal Holbrook
Hal Holbrook
Harold Rowe "Hal" Holbrook, Jr. is an American actor. His television roles include Abraham Lincoln in the 1976 TV series Lincoln, Hays Stowe on The Bold Ones: The Senator and Capt. Lloyd Bucher on Pueblo. He is also known for his role in the 2007 film Into the Wild, for which he was nominated for...
, her father, was in attendance opening night. "You wrote this? How old are you? You aren't old enough to have written this?" said Hal to Molly. "I'm thirty-six, that's old enough, isn't it?" asked Molly with a smile. TABULA RASA is a story of a National Geographic style of photo journalist who has come home from New York City on assignment to shoot the Victorian architecture of her small East Texas home town, and how she finds value in the memories left behind in such a beautiful place, even though she felt limited in her youth by growing up in a small town.
The play explores the subtle acts of racism still in effect today, even after the civil rights movement of the sixties. It is a spiritual play about "Toxie", an 80-year-old African American woman in her last days, as she prepares to join her family on the "other side" - that is as soon as she has dispensed with her "one and only earthly treasure", a vintage photograph, with the help of "Thadia", the photographer as she appears in the play in her youth. It is a "memory" play, where grown "Thadia" narrates, as the young "Thadia" helps the audience explore the youth that brought her to New York City to become a photographer.
"The lyricism and spirituality of TABULA RASA resembled an August Wilson play" said The Off-Broadway Review. The Dallas Examiner said, "She's a Southern Gothic writer, reminiscent of William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
...Beth Henley
Beth Henley
Elizabeth Becker "Beth" Henley is an American dramatist and actress. She writes primarily about women's issues and family in the Southern United States. She is also a screenwriter who has written many film adaptations of her plays...
, and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
, in Great Company. Molly Louise Shepard has truly written a 'gem'."
Discouraged by the limitations presented her as a regional playwright, Molly moved with her family to Los Angeles in 2001. Unfortunately, although the move was planned at least a year in advance, it coincided directly within the time frame of 9/11, so that not only did the Southern Gothic playwright and her family go through culture shock at being plunged into the society of one of the largest and most culturally diverse cities in the world, Los Angeles, where over 50 languages are spoken; but they moved during a great time of intesified national security for the United States.
During that time, her daughter, Madison, who wrote and directed a film called Black Lipstick at age 14, was flown home repeatedly for film festivals featuring her piece alongside grownup film makers. Black Lipstick is a short film about the persecution of a "goth" teen by her Principal, teacher and fellow students, and how she learns to fight back for her individuality through the use of words. BLACK LIPSTICK was shown at Vista's Film Festival, The Deep Ellum Film Festival, and The Long on Shorts Festival at the Horchow Auditorium at Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art is a major art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, USA, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In 1984, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District, Dallas, Texas...
.
Though accepted at Booker T. Washington High School for the Arts in Dallas, Madison chose to attend Los Angeles County High School for the Arts
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts is a Visual and Performing Arts high school located on the campus of California State University, Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1984, the public, tuition-free school offers both college preparatory courses and...
, alma mater to Jenna Elfman
Jenna Elfman
Jennifer Mary "Jenna" Elfman is an American television and film actress. She is known for her role as Dharma on the ABC sitcom Dharma & Greg and as Billie on the short-lived CBS sitcom Accidentally on Purpose....
, Josh Groban
Josh Groban
Joshua Winslow "Josh" Groban is an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, and record producer. His four solo albums have been certified at least multi-platinum, and in 2007, he was charted as the number-one best selling artist in the United States with over 21 million records in that country...
and many others. After high school, Madison attended the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...
in London, England, alma mater to Sir Laurence Olivier and Judi Dench
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
. In 2003, Molly married her longtime sweetheart, Dan Berke, and the family settled down in the beautiful Toluca Lake area just outside Los Angeles, which is just under an hour's drive from the beach. Molly served as developmental editor for the benchmark arts and crafts series: DESIGNING WITH and QUOTE, UNQUOTE book and calendar series from 2003 to 2008 for Autumn Leaves. In 2008, she accepted a position as editor for McGraw-Hill, and was their employee until 2010. Molly is currently writing a Hollywood murder mystery surrounding the death of 1930s screen siren Thelma Todd
Thelma Todd
Thelma Alice Todd was an American actress. Appearing in about 120 pictures between 1926 and 1935, she is best remembered for her comedic roles in films like Marx Brothers' Monkey Business and Horse Feathers, a number of Charley Chase's short comedies, and co-starring with Buster Keaton and Jimmy...
, among a myriad of new screenplays, and enjoys working as a freelance editor by day.