Despite their significant contributions to the American theater, African American dramatists have received less critical attention than novelists and poets. This reference offers thorough critical assessments of the lives and works of African American playwrights from the 19th century to the present. The book alphabetically arranges entries on more than 60 dramatists, including James Baldwin, Arna Bontemps, Ossie Davis, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a summary of the playwright's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.
This volume addresses the work of women playwrights throughout the history of the American theatre, from the early pioneers to contemporary feminists. Each chapter introduces the reader to the work of one or more playwrights and to a way of thinking about plays. Together they cover significant writers such as Rachel Crothers, Susan Glaspell, Lillian Hellman, Sophie Treadwell, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, Megan Terry, Ntozake Shange, Adrienne Kennedy, Wendy Wasserstein, Marsha Norman, Beth Henley and Maria Irene Fornes. Playwrights are discussed in the context of topics such as early comedy and melodrama, feminism and realism, the Harlem Renaissance, the feminist resurgence of the 1970s and feminist dramatic theory. A detailed chronology and illustrations enhance the volume, which also includes bibliographical essays on recent criticism and on African-American women playwrights before 1930.
Call Number: Main Library Stacks PS153.N5 P43 1988
American Playwrights: E-Book Reference
Click here for a list of books about American playwrights in Cambridge Companions Online.
British & American Playwrights: E-Book Reference
Twentieth-Century American Dramatists (Gale Literature Resource Center)
First,Second,Third,Fourth, and Fifth Series.
196 biographical entries -- click on the linked date (in blue) to view entries from each individual volume. Use "Search Within" to limit results to a specific playwright.
71 entries include: W. H. Auden, Harold Brighouse, Noel Coward, T. S. Eliot, John Galsworthy, W. Somerset Maugham, A. A. Milne, Sean O'Casey, Bernard Shaw, John van Druten, Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats.
British and Irish dramatists since World War II (Gale Dictionary of Literary Biography)
First,Second,Third,and Fourth Series.
101 biographical entries -- click on the linked date (in blue) to view entries from each individual volume. Use "Search Within" to limit results to a specific playwright.