Playwrights for Tomorrow was first published in 1969. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Three plays are published in this sixth volume of a series of collections of plays by dramatists who have participated in an experimental program conducted by the Office for Advanced Drama Research (O.A.D.R.), University of Minnesota. Dr. Arthur H. Ballet, editor of the series, is the director of the program. The plays in this volume are The Thing Itself by Arthur Sainer, The Marriage Test by Jonathan Gillman, and The End of the World; or, Fragments from a Work in Progress by Keith Neilson. In an introduction Dr. Ballet briefly describes the O.A.D.R. program and comments on the three plays. Of Mr. Sainer and his play Dr. Ballet writes: "Arthur Sainer represents a new wave in theatrical writing, the semi-improvisational piece which really takes on life only in production, but which also speaks with a voice as old and honorable as theatre itself. The Firehouse Theatre, with its unique and skillful dedication to innovative theatre, brought The Things Itself to exciting production for enthusiastic audiences." Jonathan Gillman's The Marriage Test is, he writes, "a rare and sparkling work for the stage: a classic farce." On the third play and its author he comments: "The End of the World by Keith Neilson was the first play provided with facilities under the O.A.D.R. outside the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in an attempt to see if the program could work at long distance as well as it has at home. The play, the playwright, and the O.A.D.R. were blessed with a wonderful company, theatre, and audience at the Playhouse in the Park, Cincinnati, Ohio, and above all with a dedicated and talented director in Brooks Jones. Neilson is a continuous creator in theatre."

England, 1541. King Henry receives an anonymous letter suggesting that his fifth wife, the young Katherine Howard, whom he had called a rose without a thorn, may have led an unchaste life before they married. In the rose gardens of Hampton Court Palace, Henry feels the illusion of youth and virility slip away; he faces an uncertain future. Must he dispatch yet another wife? Old, overweight and increasingly infirm, could he find love and marry again to further secure the Tudor line? Written with literary invention, Thorns in a Realm of Roses spans the final years in Henry’s reign. Peeling back the layers of life at Court, it examines the hearts and minds of Henry, his often misbegotten queens, neglected daughter Mary and his many loyal, though wary, advisors as they all struggle to survive in a world embroiled in political and religious upheaval ruled by a petulant King.