The Oxford Handbook of American Drama

Edited by Jeffrey H. Richards and With Heather S. Nathans

Oxford Handbooks

The most comprehensive multi-authored book on American drama currently in print
Covers the origins of theatre in North America, major dramatic developments in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and new work and trends in the twenty-first
Offers the advantage of comprehensive views along with developed examples from hundreds of plays
Pursues the precursors to O'Neill, Miller, and Williams with equal vigor to their successors, noting the significant cultural space occupied by genres like minstrelsy or reformist drama

The Oxford Handbook of American Drama

Edited by Jeffrey H. Richards and With Heather S. Nathans

Description

When one thinks of American Drama, names like Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams readily come to mind. However, as The Oxford Handbook of American Drama shows, the U.S. has a deep and varied tradition that extends back to the years before the Revolutionary War. The essays gathered here trace U.S dramatic history, ranging from plays by Mercy Otis Warren to Tony Kushner.

The volume opens with an exploration of the trials and tribulations of strolling players in the colonial era, before shifting to a discussion of the ways plays were deployed for political ends during the Revolution, most notably by the patriot Mercy Otis Warren. The narrative extends to the post-Revolutionary period when plays were used as vehicles to promote republican virtue. Contributors also explore the vibrant drama to emerge during the nineteenth century, when blackface performers and stars such as Edwin Forrest, Charlotte Cushman, and Edwin Booth dominated the stage. The period also witnessed the arrival of the first piece of musical theater, The Black Crook, which is productively situated in a musical tradition that extends to Rodgers and Hammerstein. The Handbook offers a complex treatment of melodrama - the most popular genre of the century. The volume traces the rise of the country's first black acting company in the 1820s, as well as the growing number of ethnic characters presented on the stage. Several of the contributors also highlight the role of women playwrights such as Anna Cora Mowatt in the development of American drama.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Provincetown Players helped to usher in the era of modern drama, which allowed playwrights such as Eugene O'Neill, Susan Glaspell, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to experiment with the form and attempt topics regarded as taboo at the time. As melodrama gave way to realism, exemplified in the work of O'Neill and Rachel Crothers, other dramatic techniques such as naturalism and expressionism were introduced to the stage. Other topics covered in the Handbook include: the political plays of Arthur Miller; the major freedoms brought to the American stage since the 1960s; the new generation of playwrights, such as Tony Kushner and Harvey Fierstein, who created plays dealing explicitly with topics like AIDS and homosexuality; and the rich genealogy of the African American family play in works by Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson, and Suzan-Lori Parks. The volume concludes with the bold performance art of the Living Theatre and the new multiculturalism that arrived on the contemporary stage, with various ethnic communities --Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Asians, and Native Americans-becoming the focus of the action. The Oxford Handbook of American Drama presents a comprehensive introduction to the form in all its guises.

The Oxford Handbook of American Drama

Edited by Jeffrey H. Richards and With Heather S. Nathans

Oxford Handbooks

Preface

Introduction - Jeffrey H. Richards

1 Theatre Companies before the Revolution - Odai Johnson
2 Revolutionary American Drama and Theater - Jason Shaffer
3 Early Republican Drama - Jeffrey H. Richards
4 The Politics of Antebellum Melodrama - Scott C. Martin
5 Minstrelsy and Uncle Tom - Sarah Meer
6 Representing Ethnic Identity on the Antebellum Stage, 1825-1861 - Heather S. Nathans
7 Antebellum Plays by Women: Contexts and Themes - Amelia Howe Kritzer
8 Reform Drama - Mark Mullen
9 Antebellum Frontier and Urban Plays, 1825-1860 - Rosemarie Bank
10 Late Melodrama - Mark Hodin
11 A New Realism - Mark Fearnow
12 American Musical Theatre, 1870 to 1945 - Thomas S. Hischak
13 The New Woman, the Suffragist, and the Stage - Katherine E. Kelly
14 The Rise of African American Drama, 1822-1879 - Marvin McAllister
15 The Provincetown Players in American Culture - Brenda Murphy
16 Eugene O'Neill - Steven F. Bloom
17 Naturalism and Expressionism in American Drama - Julia A. Walker
18 American Political Drama, 1910-1945 - Christopher J. Herr
19 Federal Theatre Project - Barry B. Witham
20 African American Drama, 1910-1945 - Kathy A. Perkins
21 Arthur Miller: A Radical Politics of the Soul - Jeffrey D. Mason
22 Tennessee Williams and the Winemiller Inheritance - Stephen Bottoms
23 Experimental Theatre: Beyond Illusion - Theodore Shank
24 Post-World War II African American Theater - Harry J. Elam, Jr.
25 The Postwar Musical - Michelle Dvoskin
26 Postwar Protest Plays - S. E. Wilmer
27 Feminist Drama - Dorothy Chansky
28 Drama and Technology - Roger Bechtel
29 Drama and the New Sexualities - Jordan Schildcrout
30 Political Drama - Stephen Watt
31 Ethnicity and Postwar Drama - Jon D. Rossini
32 Running Lines: Narratives of Twenty-First-Century American Theater - Marc Robinson

The Oxford Handbook of American Drama

Edited by Jeffrey H. Richards and With Heather S. Nathans

Oxford Handbooks

Author Information

Jeffrey H. Richards was Eminent Professor of Literature at Old Dominion University. He was the author of Drama Theater, and Identity in the American New Republic and the editor of Early Plays: Eugene O'Neill and Early American Drama (Penguin; 2001, 1997).

Heather S. Nathans is Professor of Theatre at the University of Maryland and the new President of the American Society for Theatre Research.

Contributors:

Rosemarie Bank, Kent State University
Roger Bechtel, Carleton College
Steven F. Bloom, Lasell College
Stephen Bottoms, The University of Manchester
Dorothy Chansky, Texas Tech University
Michelle Dvoskin, Western Kentucky University
Harry J. Elam, Jr., Stanford University
Mark Fearnow, Hanover College
Christopher J. Herr, Missouri State University
Thomas S. Hischak, The State University of New York, Cortland
Mark Hodin, Canisius College
Odai Johnson, University of Washington
Katherine E. Kelly, Texas A&M University
Amelia Howe Kritzer, University of St. Thomas
Scott C. Martin, Bowling Green State University
Jeffrey D. Mason, California State University, Bakersfield
Marvin McAllister, University of South Carolina
Sarah Meer, University of Cambridge
Mark Mullen, George Washington University
Brenda Murphy, University of Connecticut
Heather S. Nathans, Tufts University
Kathy A. Perkins, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jeffrey H. Richards, Old Dominion University
Marc Robinson, Yale University
Jon D. Rossini, University of California, Davis
Jordan Schildcrout, Purchase College
Jason Shaffer, United State Naval Academy
Theodore Shank, University of California, San Diego
Julia A. Walker, Washington University in St. Louis
Stephen Watt, Indiana University, Bloomington
S. E. Wilmer, Trinity College, Dublin
Barry B. Witham, University of Washington

The Oxford Handbook of American Drama

Edited by Jeffrey H. Richards and With Heather S. Nathans

Oxford Handbooks

Reviews and Awards

"This reviewer would recommend this handbook for any graduate dramatic literature or theatre history course; each essay displays a firm grasp of the era or subject for which it was written. It is best used in conjunction with the reading of a play or the writing of a paper concerning a particular aspect of American dramatic literature rather than as a resource substituting the reading, viewing, or staging of a play." --Rodney Donahue, Journal of American Culture

"There are more than a few 'handbooks,' 'guidebooks,' or 'companions to' out there, but The Oxford Handbook of American Drama is uncommon in its thorough and wide-ranging presentation of multiple topics.... Most impressive are the ways in which the book merges the familiar with the more shadowed corners of the American canon, and, in most cases, individual topics are each engagingly unpacked by a major scholar specializing in a particular subject.... The often astonishing, politically and emotionally wrenching, and riotously entertaining theatrical heritage of the United States is fully present here in chapters immersing the reader in the work of diverse artists, companies, historical issues, and recurring themes emerging from 350-plus years of the nation's still comparatively young existence." --Journal of Dramatic Theory & Criticism

"Lead editor Jeffrey H. Richards, along with coeditor Heather S. Nathans, who completed the book after Richards's death...are among the leading scholars of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American stage, with a strong interest in surveying the rich and complex dramatic landscape before the modernist era.... [A]conspicuous feature of this collection is its thematic interconnections, with several key topics and issues treated in multiple essays spanning different historical periods." --Eugene O'Neill Review

"The Oxford Handbook of American Drama gathers short, evocative essays by well-known scholars into a comprehensive overview of the field.... Short, tightly focused essays balance the need for clear outlines and introductions with creative and probing forays into the field's central questions. Up-to-date citations and generous lists of sources ably guide scholars toward materials for further research. In short, it is-as one would expect from a major press-a well-conceived and executed handbook, a useful starting place for scholars new to the field and a valuable tool for those wishing to revisit the field's central ongoing discussions." --Early American Literature