Table of Contents

List of illustrations; List of contributors; Preface; Chronology Stephanie Roach; Part I. Pioneers: 1. Comedies by early American women Amelia Howe Kritzer; 2. Women writing melodrama Sarah J. Blackstone; 3. Realism and feminism in the Progressive era Patricia R. Schroeder; Part II. Inheritors: 4. Susan Glaspell and Modernism Veronica Makowsky; 5. The Expressionist movement: Sophie Treadwell Jerry Dickey; 6. Feminism and the marketplace: the career of Rachel Crothers Brenda Murphy; 7. The Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro movement Judith L. Stephens; 8. Lillian Hellman: feminism, formalism, and politics Thomas P. Adler; 9. From Harlem to Broadway: African-American women playwrights at mid-century Margaret Wilkerson; Part III. New Feminists: 10. Feminist theory and contemporary drama Janet Brown; 11. Feminist theater of the 'Seventies' in the United States Helene Keyssar; 12. Contemporary Playwrights/traditional forms Laurin Porter; 13. Wendy Wasserstein: a feminist voice from the Seventies to the present Jan Balakian; Part IV. Further Reading: 14. Contemporary American women playwrights: a brief survey of key scholarship Christy Gavin; 15. African-American women playwrights before 1930 Christine R. Gray; Works cited; Index.

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Newly commissioned essays explore the work of women playwrights throughout the history of the American theatre.

Reviews

'… an excellent collection of fifteen essays presenting complex analyses of the position of women and women's drama throughout American history, frequently offering opportunities for future research.' Theatre Research International