A Companion To Twentieth-Century American Drama

by Krasner, David

• ISBN13: 9781405110884
• ISBN10: 1405110880
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-12-17
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This Companion provides an original and authoritative survey of twentieth-century American drama studies, written by some of the best scholars and critics in the field. Balances consideration of canonical material with discussion of works by previously marginalized playwrights Includes studies of leading dramatists, such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill and Gertrude Stein Allows readers to make new links between particular plays and playwrights Examines the movements that framed the century, such as the Harlem Renaissance, lesbian and gay drama, and the solo performances of the 1980s and 1990s Situates American drama within larger discussions about American ideas and culture

Author Biography

David Krasner is an instructor in Theatre Studies, English, and African American Studies at Yale University. He is the author of Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre, 1895–1910 and A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance (2002). He has twice won the Errol Hill Award from the American Society for Theatre Research for the best book or essay on African American theatre history. He has also worked as a professional actor and director.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	x
Notes on Contributors	xii
Foreword	xvii
Molly Smith
Acknowledgments	xix
Introduction: The Changing Perceptions of American Drama	1	(2)
David Krasner
American Drama, 1900--1915	3	(15)
Mark Evans Bryan
Ethnic Theatre in America	18	(16)
Rachel Shteir
Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell: Staging Feminism and Modernism, 1915--1941	34	(19)
J. Ellen Gainor
Jerry Dickey
American Experimentalism, American Expressionism, and Early O'Neill	53	(16)
Deanna M. Toten Beard
Many-Faceted Mirror: Drama as Reflection of Uneasy Modernity in the 1920s	69	(22)
Felicia Hardison Londre
Playwrights and Plays of the Harlem Renaissance	91	(15)
Annemarie Bean
Reading Across the 1930s	106	(21)
Anne Fletcher
Famous Unknowns: The Dramas of Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein	127	(15)
Sarah Bay-Cheng
Eugene O'Neill: American Drama and American Modernism	142	(17)
David Krasner
Fissures Beneath the Surface: Drama in the 1940s and 1950s	159	(16)
Thomas P. Adler
Tennessee Williams	175	(17)
Brenda A. Murphy
Expressing and Exploring Faith: Religious Drama in America	192	(17)
Peter Civetta
The American Jewishness of Arthur Miller	209	(20)
Murray Biggs
Drama of the 1960s	229	(18)
Christopher Olsen
Fifteen-Love, Thirty-Love: Edward Albee	247	(16)
Steven Price
The Drama of the Black Arts Movement	263	(22)
Mike Sell
Sam Shepard and the American Sunset: Enchantment of the Mythic West	285	(16)
Leslie A. Wade
Staging the Binary: Asian American Theatre in the Late Twentieth Century	301	(17)
Daphne Lei
August Wilson	318	(16)
Harry J. Elam, Jr.
Native American Drama	334	(18)
Ann Haugo
John Guare and the Popular Culture Hype of Celebrity Status	352	(18)
Gene A. Plunka
Writing Beyond Borders: A Survey of US Latina/o Drama	370	(18)
Tiffany Ana Lopez
``Off the Porch and into the Scene'': Southern Women Playwrights Beth Henley, Marsha Norman, Rebecca Gilman, and Jane Martin	388	(18)
Linda Rohrer Paige
David Mamet: America on the American Stage	406	(17)
Janet V. Haedicke
1970--1990: Disillusionment, Identity, and Discovery	423	(17)
Mark Fearnow
Maria Irene Fornes: Acts of Translation	440	(16)
Andrew Sofer
From Eccentricity to Endurance: Jewish Comedy and the Art of Affirmation	456	(17)
Julia Listengarten
Repercussions and Remainders in the Plays of Paula Vogel: An Essay in Five Moments	473	(13)
Ann Pellegrini
Lesbian and Gay Drama	486	(18)
Jill Dolan
American Drama of the 1990s On and Off-Broadway	504	(15)
June Schlueter
Solo Performance Drama: The Self as Other?	519	(17)
Stephen J. Bottoms
Experimental Drama at the End of the Century	536	(16)
Ehren Fordyce
Index	552