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.

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.

• 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

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.

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.

• 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