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Rehearsals have begun at UNC Pembroke for a stage production of “Buried Child,” featuring Obie Award winning actor Randolph Curtis Rand.

The Pulitzer Prize winning play will be performed in the Givens Performing Arts Center on Feb. 20-22 at 8 p.m. on weeknights and 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Admission is $5 for the general public. Students, faculty and staff can attend for free.

Rand is a veteran New York actor, director, designer and teacher. He has performed with theatre companies in New York and several touring and regional companies.

UNCP theatre professor and veteran stage actor Holden Hansen will direct and perform in the production, along with Dr. Thomas Heffernan, a faculty member in the English and Theatre Department; Marcela Casals, a Fayetteville actress; and students, James Ellison, Claudia Warga and Justin Winters.

“Buried Child” was written by Sam Shepard was first staged in 1978. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979. The play depicts the breakdown of the American family set in the 1970s rural economic slowdown.

Rand has worked in North Carolina and he has taught at the Governors School. He met Hansen in 2010 when they were in the cast of “The Seafarer,” a production of the Burning Coal Theatre Company in Raleigh.

Rand spoke from Boulder, Colo., where he was teaching following two weeks of rehearsal in Pembroke.

“Rehearsal is going very well,” Rand said. “I am quite impressed with the students. It’s a very good cast.”

Rand, who calls Brooklyn, N.Y., home, has never performed in a Shepard play, but “Buried Child” is growing on him.

“Shepard is a great American playwright, and I love the play more and more as we rehearse,” he said. “I would not say I am the star. The six parts are all equal.”

Hansen said “Buried Child,” is a modern Greek tragedy. “It is also very funny in places,” Hansen said. “Randy is very talented and has made it a lot of fun for the cast. We are getting along really well.”

Rand will teach several advanced acting courses while in Pembroke.