This is the first one-volume survey of American drama, from 1945-1990, comprehensively covering the most exciting and prolific period in its history. Christopher Bigsby takes a fresh look at the major figures who have shaped postwar American drama, exploring the works of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, David Mamet, and Sam Shepard. Bigsby also looks at Broadway and at the theatre which geared itself to the experiences of race and gender, examining the works of Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson, and Marsha Norman, among others.
In this new edition of the widely-acclaimed Modern American Drama Christopher Bigsby completes his survey of postwar theater and brings the reader up to 2000. While retaining the key elements of the first edition, including surveys of major figures such as Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, and Sam Shepard, Bigsby also explores recent works by established dramatists.
This is the first one-volume survey of American drama, from 1945-1990, comprehensively covering the most exciting and prolific period in its history. Christopher Bigsby takes a fresh look at the major figures who have shaped postwar American drama, exploring the works of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, David Mamet, and Sam Shepard. Bigsby also looks at Broadway and at the theatre which geared itself to the experiences of race and gender, examining the works of Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson, and Marsha Norman, among others.
From Arthur Miller to Tony Kushner, this volume chronicles the playwrights and plays that shaped America drama to the present time.This is an electronic version of the original edition of this;Bloom's Period Studies;title, cont.
Sanford Sternlicht presents a comprehensive survey of modern American drama beginning with its antecedents in Victorian melodrama through the present. He discusses the work and achievement of more than seventy playwrights, from Eugene O’Neill to Suzan-Lori Parks—from the golden era of Broadway to the rise of Off-Broadway and regional theater. Stern-licht shows how world theater influenced the American stage, and how the views of American dramatists reflected the great American social movements of their times. In addition, he describes the contributions of early experimental theater, the Federal Theater of the 1930s, African American, feminist, and gay and lesbian drama—and the joyous trends and triumphs of American musical theater.
The Decades of Modern American Playwriting series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each decade from the 1930s to 2009 in eight volumes. Each volume equips readers with a detailed understanding of the context from which work emerged: an introduction considers life in the decade with a focus on domestic life and conditions, social changes, culture, media, technology, industry and political events; while a chapter on the theatre of the decade offers a wide-ranging and thorough survey of theatres, companies, dramatists, new movements and developments in response to the economic and political conditions of the day. The work of the four most prominent playwrights from the decade receives in-depth analysis and re-evaluation by a team of experts, together with commentary on their subsequent work and legacy. A final section brings together original documents such as interviews with the playwrights and with directors, drafts of play scenes, and other previously unpublished material. The major playwrights and their plays to receive in-depth coverage in this volume include: * Tony Kushner: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One and Part Two (1991), Slavs! Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness (1995) and A Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds (1997); * Paula Vogel: Baltimore Waltz (1992), The Mineola Twins (1996) and How I Learned to Drive (1997); * Suzan-Lori Parks: The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (1990), The America Play (1994) and Venus (1996); * Terrence McNally: Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991), Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997) and Corpus Christi (1998).
This concise introduction to American drama gives readers an overview of how American drama developed from the end of the Second World War to the turn of the twenty-first century. Provides a balanced assessment of the major plays and playwrights of the period. Shows how these dramatists broke new ground in their contribution to political, economic, social and cultural debates, as well as in their dramaturgical strategies. Organized chronologically, with plays, playwrights and movements clustered around different movements such as realism and experimentalism. Gives readers a sense of the development of American drama over time.
