Playwright Sam Shepard will discuss his career and read from his own work on "Sam Shepard: Stalking Himself," a television special to be aired July 8 at 9 PM (ET) on PBS in New York. Check local listings for times elsewhere. The program will mark the first television interview Shepard has ever given.

The Pulitzer-winning writer's musings will be interspersed with clips from Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company's productions of the playwright's The Tooth of Crime and Curse of the Starving Class, and Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company's stagings of True West and Buried Child. (Signature dedicated its 1996-97 season to the work of Shepard.) Shepard colleagues and collaborators Gary Sinise, Ethan Hawke, John Malkovich, and Ed Harris will provide commentary.

The program will be immediately followed by an encore presentation of the 1984 Steppenwolf staging of True West starring Sinise and Malkovich. The play will air at 10 PM.

Oren Jacoby directs the program, which is presented by Teale Productions/Storyville Films, in association with Thirteen/WNET and BBC Worldwide.

-- By Robert Simonson