A new collection by the author of Marisol and Other Plays.

Taking its cue from Eugene O'Neill's questioning of «faithful realism», voiced by Edmund Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night, this book examines the distant legacy of the Irish American playwright in contemporary multiethnic drama in the U.S. It explores the labyrinth of formal devices through which African American, Latina/o, First Nations, and Asian American dramatists have unconsciously reinterpreted O'Neill's questioning of mimesis. In their works, hybridizations of stage realism function as aesthetic celebrations of the spiritual potentialities of cultural in-betweenness. This volume provides detailed analyses of over forty plays authored by such key artists as August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, José Rivera, Cherríe Moraga, Hanay Geiogamah, Diane Glancy, David Henry Hwang, and Chay Yew, to give only a few prominent examples. All in all, Labyrinth of Hybridities invites its readers to reassess the cross-cultural patterns characterizing the history of twentieth century American drama.

These 15 interviews illustrate the diversity of modern American theater and examine what makes it a unique art form. Savran (English, Brown U.) discusses the work, artistic influences, and the state of contemporary American theater and its meaning and purpose with artists including Tony Kushner, Jose Rivera, Ntozake Shange, and Anna Deveare Smith. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The latest works from one of our country’s most inventive playwrights.

This Companion provides an original and authoritative surveyof twentieth-century American drama studies, written by some of thebest scholars and critics in the field. Balances consideration of canonical material with discussion ofworks by previously marginalized playwrights Includes studies of leading dramatists, such as TennesseeWilliams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill and Gertrude Stein Allows readers to make new links between particular plays andplaywrights Examines the movements that framed the century, such as theHarlem Renaissance, lesbian and gay drama, and the soloperformances of the 1980s and 1990s Situates American drama within larger discussions aboutAmerican ideas and culture

Unlike any other book of its kind, this volume celebrates published works from a broad range of American ethnic groups not often featured in the typical canon of literature. This culturally rich encyclopedia contains 160 alphabetically arranged entries on African American, Asian American, Latino/a, and Native American literary traditions, among others. The book introduces the uniquely American mosaic of multicultural literature by chronicling the achievements of American writers of non-European descent and highlighting the ethnic diversity of works from the colonial era to the present. The work features engaging topics like the civil rights movement, bilingualism, assimilation, and border narratives. Entries provide historical overviews of literary periods along with profiles of major authors and great works, including Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Maya Angelou, Sherman Alexie, A Raisin in the Sun, American Born Chinese, and The House on Mango Street. The book also provides concise overviews of genres not often featured in textbooks, like the Chinese American novel, African American young adult literature, Mexican American autobiography, and Cuban American poetry.

The Routledge Companion to Latine Theatre and Performance traces how manifestations of Latine self-determination in contemporary US theatre and performance practices affirm the value of Latine life in a theatrical culture that has a legacy of misrepresentation and erasure. This collection draws on fifty interdisciplinary contributions written by some of the leading Latine theatre and performance scholars and practitioners in the United States to highlight evolving and recurring strategies of world making, activism, and resistance taken by Latine culture makers to gain political agency on and off the stage. The project reveals the continued growth of Latine theatre and performance through chapters covering but not limited to playwriting, casting practices, representation, training, wrestling with anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity, theatre for young audiences, community empowerment, and the market forces that govern the US theatre industry. This book enters conversations in performance studies, ethnic studies, American studies, and Latina/e/o/x studies by taking up performance scholar Diana Taylor’s call to consider the ways that “embodied and performed acts generate, record, and transmit knowledge.” This collection is an essential resource for students, scholars, and theatremakers seeking to explore, understand, and advance the huge range and significance of Latine performance.