American Playwrights, 1880-1945
American Playwrights, 1880-1945

Author: William W. Demastes

Publisher: Greenwood

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 522

ISBN-13:

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During the years 1880 to 1945, American theatre grew up, moving from entertainment-driven motives and melodramatic formulas to serious confrontations with issues of its time and to an experimentation with forms that would allow those confrontations to be frank and earnest. Many of the playwrights of this time wrote works of lasting significance, while others have impacted the work of contemporary dramatists. This reference is a guide to American theatre during this formative period. The volume includes alphabetically arranged entries for 40 American playwrights active between 1880 and 1945. Included are the most frequently canonized figures, as well as previously neglected women and minority playwrights whose work is a vital part of American theatre history. Each entry includes a biographical overview, a summary of the critical reception of major productions and significant revivals, a critical assessment of the playwright's career, and a listing of archival, primary, and secondary bibliographic material.

The Undergraduate's Companion to American Writers and Their Web Sites
The Undergraduate's Companion to American Writers and Their Web Sites

Author: Larry G. Hinman

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2000-12-15

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0313091471

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An outstanding research guide for undergraduate students of American literature, this best-selling book is essential when it comes to researching American authors. Bracken and Hinman identify and describe the best and most current sources, both in print and online, for nearly 300 American writers whose works are included in the most frequently used literary anthologies. Students will know exactly what information is available and where to find it.

British Playwrights, 1880-1956
British Playwrights, 1880-1956

Author: William W. Demastes

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 1996-12-09

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 0313032653

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From 1880 to 1956, when John Osborne transformed the British theater world with Look Back in Anger, British playwrights made numerous lasting contributions and provided a foundation for the innovations of dramatists during the latter half of the 20th century. This reference profiles the life and work of some 40 British playwrights active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of whom are also known for their work as novelists and poets. Included are figures such as W. H. Auden, Max Beerbohm, Noel Coward, T. S. Eliot, John Galsworthy, Graham Greene, D. H. Lawrence, W. Somerset Maugham, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde. Each entry provides a biographical overview; a list of major plays and summaries of their critical reception; a list of minor plays, adaptations, and productions; an assessment of the playwright's career; and archival and bibliographical information. Included in this reference book are alphabetically arranged entries for some 40 British playwrights active from 1880 through 1956. Entries are written by expert contributors, with each entry providing a biographical overview; a list of major plays, premieres, and significant revivals, along with a summary of the critical reception of these works; a listing of additional plays, adaptations, and productions; an assessment of the playwright's career and contributions, with reference to published evaluations in magazines, journals, dissertations, and books; a listing of locations housing unpublished archival material, if available; a selected bibliography of the dramatist's published plays and of essays and articles by the playwright on aspects of the theater; a selected bibliography of secondary sources; and, when available, a listing of previously published bibliographies on the playwright.

The A to Z of American Theater
The A to Z of American Theater

Author: James Fisher

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2009-09-02

Total Pages: 618

ISBN-13: 0810870479

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The 50-year period from 1880 to 1929 is the richest era for theater in American history, certainly in the great number of plays produced and artists who contributed significantly, but also in the centrality of theater in the lives of Americans. As the impact of European modernism began to gradually seep into American theater during the 1880s and quite importantly in the 1890s, more traditional forms of theater gave way to futurism, symbolism, surrealism, and expressionism. American playwrights like Eugene O'Neill, George Kelly, Elmer Rice, Philip Barry, and George S. Kaufman ushered in the Golden Age of American drama. The A to Z of American Theater: Modernism focuses on legitimate drama, both as influenced by European modernism and as impacted by the popular entertainment that also enlivened the era. This is accomplished through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced entries on plays; music; playwrights; great performers like Maude Adams, Otis Skinner, Julia Marlowe, and E.H. Sothern; producers like David Belasco, Daniel Frohman, and Florenz Ziegfeld; critics; architects; designers; and costumes.

American Women Writers, 1900-1945
American Women Writers, 1900-1945

Author: Laurie Champion

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2000-09-30

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 0313032556

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Women writers have been traditionally excluded from literary canons and not until recently have scholars begun to rediscover or discover for the first time neglected women writers and their works. This reference includes alphabetically arranged entries on 58 American women authors who wrote between 1900 and 1945. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and discusses a particular author's biography, her major works and themes, and the critical response to her writings. The entries close with extensive primary and secondary bibliographies, and the volume concludes with a list of works for further reading. The period surveyed by this reference is rich and diverse. Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, two major artistic movements, occurred between 1900 and 1945, and the entries included here demonstrate the significant contributions women made to these movements. The volume as a whole strives to reflect the diversity of American culture and includes entries for African American, Native American, Mexican American, and Chinese American women. It includes well known writers such as Willa Cather and Eudora Welty, along with more neglected ones such as Anita Scott Coleman and Sui Sin Far.

Historical Dictionary of American Theater
Historical Dictionary of American Theater

Author: James Fisher

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-11-22

Total Pages: 810

ISBN-13: 1538107864

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This book covers the history of theater as well as the literature of America from 1880-1930. The years covered by this volume features the rise of the popular stage in America from the years following the end of the Civil War to the Golden Age of Broadway, with an emphasis on its practitioners, including such diverse figures as William Gillette, Mrs. Fiske, George M. Cohan, Maude Adams, David Belasco, George Abbott, Clyde Fitch, Eugene O’Neill, Texas Guinan, Robert Edmond Jones, Jeanne Eagels, Susan Glaspell, The Adlers and the Barrymores, Tallulah Bankhead, Philip Barry, Maxwell Anderson, Mae West, Elmer Rice, Laurette Taylor, Eva Le Gallienne, and a score of others. Entries abound on plays of all kinds, from melodrama to the newly-embraced realistic style, ethnic works (Irish, Yiddish, etc.), and such diverse forms as vaudeville, circus, minstrel shows, temperance plays, etc. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of American Theater: Modernism covers the history of modernist American Theatre through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 2,000 cross-referenced entries on actors and actresses, directors, playwrights, producers, genres, notable plays and theatres. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the American Theater in its greatest era.

The Facts on File Companion to American Drama
The Facts on File Companion to American Drama

Author: Jackson R. Bryer

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 1438129661

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Features a comprehensive guide to American dramatic literature, from its origins in the early days of the nation to the groundbreaking works of today's best writers.

Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston

Author: Rose P. Davis

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 1997-11-30

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0313064911

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Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) is one of 20th-century America's foremost fiction and folklore writers. Though she was criticized by some of her contemporaries, including Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, her works are now frequently taught in literature courses and are widely admired for their style and substance. This reference book is a comprehensive guide to the large body of work written about her in the last 75 years. Included are annotated entries for books, dissertations, and theses written about Hurston's life and literary career. The volume also looks at hundreds of articles, book chapters, conference papers, reviews, children's books, and web sites. The bibliography additionally points the reader to guides and biographical sources and to anthologies where her works are collected. Finally, an exhaustive list of works by Hurston is provided, along with a catalog of the special collections where her manuscripts, correspondence, and ephemera are stored. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) is one of 20th-century America's foremost fiction and folklore writers. One of the most important authors of the Harlem Renaissance and one of the first black anthropologists, she received little recognition during her lifetime. She was criticized by some of her contemporaries, including Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, and her works were largely neglected until the early 1970s. Her works are now frequently taught in literature courses and are widely admired for their style and substance. Her anthropological study,IMules and Men (1935), is a pioneering examination of Voodoo and related folklore. As a novelist, she is best known as the author of Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934) and Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). In addition, she was a prolific journalist who contributed to the most popular magazines and newspapers of her time. Though long neglected, Hurston has become firmly established in the literary canon, and scores of books and articles have been written about her. This reference book is a comprehensive guide to the large body of work written about her in the last 75 years. Included are annotated entries for books, dissertations, and theses written about Hurston's life and literary career. The volume also looks at hundreds of articles, book chapters, conference papers, reviews, children's books, and web sites. The bibliography additionally points the reader to guides and biographical sources and to anthologies where her works are collected. Finally, an exhaustive list of works by Hurston is provided, along with a catalog of the special collections where her manuscripts, correspondence, and ephemera are stored.

Encyclopedia of American Drama
Encyclopedia of American Drama

Author: Jackson R. Bryer

Publisher: Infobase Learning

Published: 2015-04-22

Total Pages: 2466

ISBN-13: 1438140762

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Provides a comprehensive guide to American dramatic literature, from its origins in the early days of the nation to American classics such as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Thornton Wilder's Our Town to the groundbreaking works of today's best writers.

The Cambridge History of American Theatre
The Cambridge History of American Theatre

Author: Don B. Wilmeth

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 626

ISBN-13: 9780521651790

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The second volume of the authoritative, multi-volume Cambridge History of American Theatre, first published in 1999, begins in the post-Civil War period and traces the development of American theatre up to 1945. It covers all aspects of theatre from plays and playwrights, through actors and acting, to theatre groups and directors. Topics examined include vaudeville and popular entertainment, European influences, theatre in and beyond New York, the rise of the Little Theatre movement, changing audiences, modernism, the Federal Theatre movement, scenography, stagecraft, and architecture. Contextualising chapters explore the role of theatre within the context of American social and cultural history, and the role of American theatre in relation to theatre in Europe and beyond. This definitive history of American theatre includes contributions from the following distinguished academics - Thomas Postlewait, John Frick, Tice L. Miller, Ronald Wainscott, Brenda Murphy, Mark Fearnow, Brooks McNamara, Thomas Riis, Daniel J. Watermeier, Mary C. Henderson, and Warren Kliewer.