An unexpected friendship between two women of widely different backgrounds.

Volume Four of the distinguished American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama series offers a thorough, candid, and fascinating look at the theater in New York during the last decades of the twentieth century.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

From legends like Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller to successful present-day playwrights like Neil LaBute, Tony Kushner, and David Mamet, some of the most important names in the history of theater are from the past 80 years. Contemporary American theater has produced some of the most memorable, beloved, and important plays in history, including Death of a Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, Barefoot in the Park, Our Town, The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Odd Couple. Historical Dictionary of Contemporary American Theater presents the plays and personages, movements and institutions, and cultural developments of the American stage from 1930 to 2010, a period of vast and almost continuous change. It covers the ever-changing history of the American theater with emphasis on major movements, persons, plays, and events. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 1,500 cross-referenced dictionary entries. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the history of American theater.

From one of our most admired (and feared) cultural critics, a memoir that captures all the gritty, grubby glamour of New York in the awful/wonderful Seventies. In the autumn of 1972, a very young and green James Wolcott arrived in New York from Maryland, full of literary dreams, equipped with a letter of introduction from Norman Mailer, and having no idea what was about to hit him. Landing at a time of accelerating municipal squalor and, paradoxically, gathering cultural energy in all spheres as "Downtown" became a category of art and life unto itself, he embarked upon his sentimental education, seventies New York style. This portrait of a critic as a young man is also a rollicking, acutely observant portrait of a legendary time and place. Mixing grit and glitter in just the right proportions, suffused with affection for the talented and sometimes half-crazed denizens of the scene, it will make readers long for a time when you really could get mugged around here.

(Applause Books). In this book divided into eight chapters, author James Nicola reveals how the technique of live acting springs directly from the unique relationship between the performer and the spectator. Playing the Audience includes advice on: creating a character from the stage from external gestures to inner dialogue; scoring the text; subtext; emotional memory; substitution; conflict; objectives; through-line of action; improvisation; blocking a scene; language and speech; connecting to the world of the play; and much more.