The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights

by Tom Adler (Contribution by), Scott T. Cummings (Contribution by), Jochen Achilles (Contribution by), Ken Urban (Contribution by), Klaus Benesch (Contribution by)

Overview

Unrivalled in its coverage of recent work and writers, The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights surveys and analyses the breadth, vitality and development of theatrical work to emerge from America over the last fifty years.
This authoritative guide leads you through the work of 25 major contemporary American playwrights, discussing more than 140 plays in detail. Written by a team of 25 eminent international scholars, each chapter provides:
· a biographical introduction to the playwright's work;
· a survey and concise analysis of the writer's most important plays;
· a discussion of their style, dramaturgical concerns and critical reception;
· a bibliography of published plays and a select list of critical works.
Among the many Tony, Obie and Pulitzer prize-winning playwrights included are Sam Shepard, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, August Wilson, Paula Vogel and Neil LaBute. The abundance of work analysed enables fresh, illuminating conclusions to be drawn about the development of contemporary American playwriting.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408134818
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	12/19/2013
Series:	Guides to Contemporary Drama
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	480
File size:	658 KB

About the Author

Martin Middeke is Professor and Chair of English Literature at the University of Augsburg, Germany. Peter Paul Schnierer is Professor and Chair of English Literature at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Christopher Innes is a Professor of English at York University, Canada, and holds the Canada Research Chair in Performance and Culture. Matthew Roudané is Professor and Chair of English at Georgia State University, USA.
Scott T. Cummings is a theatre scholar and critic who has directed plays and taught courses in playwriting and dramatic literature in the Theatre Department of Boston College for more than twenty years. His teaching, research, and professional interests center on contemporary American theatre, new play dramaturgy, and devised work. His major publications include Remaking American Theater: Charles Mee, Anne Bogart and the SITI Company (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Maria Irene Fornes (Routledge, 2012), and The Theatre of Naomi Wallace: Embodied Dialogues (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), a collection of essays and commentary co-edited with Erica Stevens Abbitt. Prior to Boston College, Scott held teaching positions at Carnegie Mellon University, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pittsburgh.
Ken Urban is a playwright based in New York City.
JILL DOLAN is Professor of English and Theatre at Princeton University, USA, where she is also Director of its programme in the study of women and gender.
Christopher Innes is a Professor of English at York University, Canada, and holds the Canada Research Chair in Performance and Culture. He is the author of many books on modern drama and theatre history.
Toby Zinman is Professor of English at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA where she was awarded the prize for “Distinguished Teaching.” Zinman was a Fulbright professor at Tel Aviv University, a visiting professor in China, and has won five grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She publishes widely and lectures internationally on American drama. Zinman is also a widely published arts journalist and the chief theatre critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer where she reviews New York and London as well as Philadelphia. She was recently named by American Theatre magazine, “one of the twelve most influential critics in America.”
Susan Abbotson is Professor of English at Rhode Island College, where she mostly teaches drama. She is the author of Student Companion to Arthur Miller (2000) and A Critical Companion to Arthur Miller (2007) and numerous articles on Arthur Miller and other modern and contemporary playwrights. Past President of the Arthur Miller Society, she now manages their website and FaceBook page, and is the Performance Editor for the Arthur Miller Journal. She also authored Thematic Guide to Modern Drama (2003), Masterpieces of Twentieth Century American Drama (2005), and Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1950s (2019). She has published articles on Sam Shepard, Tom Stoppard, Mae West, Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder, August Wilson, Eugene O'Neill, Lillian Hellman, and Paula Vogel in a variety of books and journals.
Deborah R. Geis is Associate Professor of English at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, USA, where she specializes in 20th and 21st-century American literature and drama. She is the author ofPostmodern Theatric(k)s: Monologue in Contemporary American Drama and of Suzan-Lori Parks, and the editor of Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America (with Steven F. Kruger) and of Considering MAUS: Approaches to Art Spiegelman's “Survivor's Tale” of the Holocaust. She is also a published performance poet who has appeared in the National Poetry Slam and in many other venues.
Sandra G. Shannon is Professor of African American Literature, specializing in Dramatic Literature and Criticism, at Howard University, Washington, USA. She is one of America's leading scholars on the life and works of Pulitzer Prize winning playwright August Wilson and is Founder of the August Wilson Society, based at Howard University. She is the author of The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson and August Wilson's Fences: A Reference Guide, and co-editor of August Wilson and Black Aesthetics.

SANDRA G. SHANNON is Professor of African American Literature at Howard University. Her previous books include The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson (1995), and her essays have appeared in such journals as African American Review, College Language Association Journal, and MELUS.

Dr Peter Paul Schnierer is the Chair of English Literature at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
Middeke Martin (born 24 April 1963 in Paderborn) is a German literary scholar and Chair of English Literature at the University of Augsburg, Germany.
Katherine Weiss is Associate Dean at California State University Los Angeles, USA. She was formerly Professor of English and Assistant Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Literature and Language, East Tennessee State University, USA. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin; Califronia State University and the University of Reading, UK (where she earned her PhD), she is chiefly interested in Modern and Contemporary Drama, and Irish Literature. She is the author of The Plays of Samuel Beckett (Methuen Drama, 2012) a stimulating analysis of Beckett's work, encompassing his stage, radio and television plays, and editor of the Student Edition of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth.
Dr Matthew Roudané is Professor of English and Chair at Georgia State University, USA.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
1. EDWARD ALBEE
(Tom Adler, Purdue, USA)
2. MARlA IRENE FORNÉS
(Scott Cummings, Boston College, USA)
3. RICHARD GREENBERG
(Jochen Achilles, Wurzburg, Germany)
4. JOHN GUARE
(Ken Urban, Harvard, USA)
5. DAVID-HENRY HWANG
(Russell Vandenbroucke, Louisville, USA)
6. ADRIENNE KENNEDY
(Klaus Benesch, LMU Munich, Germany)
7. TONY KUSHNER
(James Fisher, North Carolina, USA)
8. NEIL LABUTE
(Christopher Innes, Toronto, Canada)
9. DAVID MAMET
(Toby Zinman, Philadelphia, USA)
10. DONALD MARGULIES
(Kerstin Schmidt, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany)
11. TERRENCE MCNALLY
(Peter Paul Schnierer, Heidelberg, Germany)
12. ARTHUR MILLER (post - 1970)
(Susan Abbotson, Rhode Island, USA)
13. MARSHA NORMAN
(Annalisa Brugnoli, University of Venice, Italy)
14. SUZAN-LORI PARKS
(Ilka Saal, Erfurt, Germany)
15. SARAH RUHL
(Deborah Geis, DePauw, USA)
16. JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY
(Annette J. Saddik, CUNY, USA)
17. WALLACE SHAWN
(Martin Middeke, Augsburg, Germany)
18. SAM SHEPARD
(Katherine Weiss, East Tennessee State University, USA)
19. CHRISTOPHER SHINN
(Stephen Bottoms, University of Manchester, UK)
20. LUIS VALDEZ
(Jorge Herta, UCSD, USA)
21. PAULA VOGEL
(Joanna Mansbridge, Nova Scotia, Canada)
22. NAOMI WALLACE
(Pia Wiegmink, Mainz, Germany)
23. WENDY WASSERSTEIN
(Frazer Lively, Weseleyan, USA)
24. AUGUST WILSON
(Sandra G. Shannon, Howard, USA)
25. WILLIAM S. YELLOW ROBE
(Birgit Daewes, Mainz, Germany)
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX

Editorial Reviews

One interesting phenomenon, emphasized in several chapters, is that while similar anthologies include only those plays that opened and ran on Broadway, this collection emphasizes many that opened off Broadway or in regional theatres across the country. The chapters are all interesting and leave the reader wanting more. ... It is highly recommended for inclusion in college and university libraries, as a supplementary reading source for courses and for anyone interested in an introduction to twentieth-century American playwrights and their plays.” —Sharon Marie Britton, Director, Mildred F. Sawyer Library, Suffolk University, Reference Reviews

From the Publisher