The Cambridge companion to American women playwrights / edited by Brenda Murphy.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Murphy, Brenda, 1950- editor.

Series:

Cambridge companions to literature.

Cambridge companions to literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American drama--Women authors--History and criticism.

American drama.

American drama--Women authors--Handbooks, manuals, etc.

Women and literature--United States.

Women and literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxxviii, 285 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Comedies by early American women / Amelia Howe Kritzer

Women writing melodrama / Sarah J. Blackstone

Realism and feminism in the Progressive Era / Patricia R. Schroeder

Susan Glaspell and modernism / Veronica Makowsky

The expressionist moment: Sophie Treadwell / Jerry Dickey

Feminism and the marketplace: the career of Rachel Crothers / Brenda Murphy

The Harlem Renaissance and the new Negro movement / Judith L. Stephens

Lillian Hellman: feminism, formalism, and politics / Thomas P. Adler

From Harlem to Broadway: African American women playwrights at mid-century / Margaret B. Wilkerson

Feminist theory and contemporary drama / Janet Brown

Feminist theatre of the seventies in the United States / Helene Keyssar

Contemporary playwrights/traditional forms / Laurin Porter

Wendy Wasserstein: a feminist voice from the seventies to the present / Jan Balakian

Contemporary American women playwrights: a brief survey of selected scholarship / Christy Gavin

Discovering and recovering African American women playwrights writing before 1930 / Christine R. Gray.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 09 Nov 2015).

ISBN:

1-139-81565-2

0-511-99964-X