This book explores the development of contemporary theatre in the United States in its historical, political and theoretical dimensions. It focuses on representative plays and performance texts from the 1940s to the present that experiment with both form and content.

This series provides accessible yet provocative introductions to a wide range of literatures. The volumes will initiate and deepen the reader's understanding of key literary movements, periods and genres, and consider debates that inform the past, present and future of literary study. Resources such as glossaries of key terms and details of archives and internet sites are also provided, making each volume a comprehensive critical guide. CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN DRAMA Annette J. Saddik This book explores the development of contemporary theatre in the United States in its historical, political and theoretical dimensions. It focuses on representative plays and performance texts that experiment with form and content, discussing influential playwrights and performance artists such as Tennessee Williams, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Shepard, Tony Kushner, Charles Ludlum, Anna Deavere Smith, Karen Finley and Will Power, alongside avant-garde theatre groups. Saddik traces the development of contemporary drama since 1945, and discusses the cross-cultural impact of postwar British and European innovations on American theatre from the 1950s to the present day in order to examine the performance of American identity. She argues that contemporary American theatre is primarily a postmodern drama of inclusion and diversity that destabilizes the notion of fixed identity and questions the nature of reality. Key features * Examines the influence of international figures such as Aristotle, Brecht, Artaud and Boal who are central to theatre as a discipline. * Explores realistic and anti-realistic styles of American drama and their political and social implications, along with key critical terms and movements. * Places the complexity of contemporary American drama within its political, sexual and ethnic contexts. * Includes rare images from La MaMa Archive/Ellen Stewart Private Collection. Annette J. Saddik is Associate Professor in the English Department at New York City Colle