Modern American Drama, 1945-2000

From the first edition: 'This is both a biographical history of the American playwrights treated, and a highly perceptive factual rendering of the development of American drama in the past half century. I believe it will be invaluable both for its insights into plays and authors and the interplay of social forces working through them … Bigsby has, in effect, read the evolving American spirit through its theatre. It is a work of enormous encyclopaedic breadth, reaching out into the myriad byways of American theatre, encompassing all its styles and approaches, but always with an eye to the central preoccupation of all serious theatre, the nation's mysterious soul.' Arthur Miller

• Preface to first edition; Preface to second edition; 1. The absent voice: American drama and the critic; 2. Eugene O'Neill's Endgame; 3. Tennessee Williams: the theatricalising self; 4. Arthur Miller: the moral imperative; 5. Edward Albee: journey to apocalypse; 6. A Broadway interlude; 7. Sam Shepard: imagining America; 8. David Mamet: all true stories; 9. The performing self; 10. Redefining the centre: politics, race, gender; 11. Beyond Broadway; Notes; Index.