American Drama 1945 - 2000 An Introduction

This succinct text 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. It provides a balanced assessment of the major plays and playwrights of the period, and shows how they broke new ground in their contribution to political, economic, social and cultural debates, as well as in their innovative dramaturgical strategies. In particular, the author shows how theatre and drama experienced the flourishing of Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional theatres, as well as trends such as realism, naturalism, melodrama, irony, satire, modernism, avant-garde, and experimentalism. Themes and movements highlighted include: the American dream of wealth and the desire for spiritual sustenance; conflicts in the American family; and the struggles for racial, gender, ethnic, and sexual equality.

David Krasner teaches theatre, drama, and performance at Yale University. He is the author of Resistance, Parody and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre 1895-1910 (1997), and A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance (2002). He is also the editor of A Companion to Twentieth-century American Drama (Blackwell, 2004), co-editor of Staging Philosophy: New Approaches to Theatre and Drama (2006), and co-editor (with Rebecca Schneider) of the University of Michigan Press’s series Theatre: Theory/Text/Performance.