In the tradition of T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, but also fiercely original, these five verse plays mix autobiography and history, myths and ghosts, fantasy and comedy in thematic dramatizations of alienation, loneliness, Faustian bargains, and American materialism by a major American poet of the twentieth century.

Verse Drama in England, 1900-2015 provides a critical and historical exploration of a tradition of modern dramatic creativity that has received very little scholarly attention. Exploring the emergence of a distinctly modern verse drama at the turn of the century and its development into the twenty-first, it counters common assumptions that the form is a marginal, fundamentally outdated curiosity. Through an examination of the extensive and diverse engagement of literary and theatrical writers, directors and musicians, Irene Morra identifies in modern verse drama a consistent and often prominent attempt to expand upon, revitalize, and redefine the contemporary English stage. Dramatists discussed include Stephen Phillips, Gordon Bottomley, John Masefield, James Elroy Flecker, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Ronald Duncan, Christopher Fry, John Arden, Anne Ridler, Tony Harrison, Steven Berkoff, Caryl Churchill, and Mike Bartlett. The book explores the negotiation of these dramatists with the changing position of verse drama in relation to constructions of national and communal audience, aesthetic challenge, and dramatic heritage. Key to the study is the self-conscious positioning of many of these dramatists in relation to an assumed mainstream tradition – and the various critical responses that that positioning has provoked. The study advocates for a scholarly revaluation of what must be identified as an influential and overlooked tradition of aesthetic challenge and creativity.

This volume is a collection of verse plays by Michael P. Riccards. The author shows how a modern verse style can be used to heighten and deepen the situations and events that characterize a variety of subjects from historical dramas of great men to baseball heroes and famous persons in fables that we all know and love.

The Book Studies The Theme Of Quest In T.S. Eliot S Drama, Showing How Religious And Symbolic Implications, Both Oriental And Occidental, Have A Direct Bearing On His Personal Life.Eliot Used Various Symbols In His Quest Because He Believed In The Idea Of The Objective Correlative, About Which He Speaks In His Essay Hamlet And His Problems. In Order To Express His Theme, Eliot Used Christian Symbols Like The Quest Of The Holy Grail And The Idea Of The Incarnation On The One Hand, And Non-Christian Elements Like The Teachings And Life Of The Buddha, Along With References To The Gita And The Upanishad On The Other. In His Quest For Form And Articulation Eliot Was Influenced By French Symbolist Poetry, The Metaphysical Poets, The Plays Of Shakespeare And His Contemporaries, The Poems Of John Davidson, Conrad S Fiction, Music-Hall Performances And Jazz Music To Name Only A Few.Eliot Wanted To Project Dramatization As The Ideal Form Of Poetic Articulation On Various Levels Of Significance Drama As A Diversified Multifarious Intensified Medium Of Audio-Visual-Intellectual Expression. His Search Seems To Have Led Him To A Kind Of Consummation As An Experimenter, In His Plays, In Communication Through Diverse Verse Forms, Themes, Characters And Situations, Exposing A Multiplicity Of Experiences Both Physical And Spiritual. In All His Plays There Is A Distinct Development Towards More Precise Articulation Of The Innermost Feelings And Emotions Of Modern Urban Man. But, More Important, The Book Traces Eliot S Personal Quest For Understanding The Meaning Of Existence His Own Life And Its Meaning Of Which His Poetry And Plays Are A Sort Of Autobiography.

Representing the largest expansion between editions, this updated volume of Ottemiller's Index to Plays in Collections is the standard location tool for full-length plays published in collections and anthologies in England and the United States throughout the 20th century and beyond. This new volume lists more than 3,500 new plays and 2,000 new authors, as well as birth and/or death information for hundreds of authors.

Beginning with Stevens's Three Travelers Watch a Sunrise (1916) as a dynamic introduction to the modernist transformation of poetry into performance, the collection also includes Millay's biting anti-war satire, Aria da Capo (1920) and H.D.'s Hippolytus Temporizes (1927), loosely adapted from the Euripides play. Both plays demonstrate the Greek poets' enduring legacy in modern poetic drama --

"Scrupulously researched, critically acute, and written with care, Playing Underground will become a classic account of an era of hard-won free expression." -William Coco "At last---a book documenting the beginnings of Off-Off Broadway theater. Playing Underground is an insightful, illuminating, and honest appraisal of this important period in American theater." -Rosalyn Drexler, author of Art Does (Not!) Exist and Occupational Hazard "An epic movie of an epic movement, Playing Underground is a book the world has waited for without knowing it. How precisely it captures the evolution of our revolution! I am amazed by the book's scope and scale, and I bless its author especially for giving two greats, Paul Foster and H. M. Koutoukas, their proper, polar places, and for memorializing such unjustly forgotten masterpieces as Irene Fornes's Molly's Dream and Jeff Weiss's A Funny Walk Home. Stephen Bottoms's vivid evocation of the grand adventure of Off-Off Broadway has woken and broken my heart. It is difficult to believe that he was not there alongside me to breathe the caffeine-nicotine-alkaloid-steeped air." -Robert Patrick, author of Kennedy's Children and Temple Slave Few books address the legendary age of 1960s off-off Broadway theater. Fortunately, Stephen Bottoms fills that gap with Playing Underground---the first comprehensive history of the roots of off-off Broadway. This is a theater whose legacy is still felt today: it was the launching pad for many leading contemporary theater artists, including Sam Shepard, Maria Irene Fornes, and others, and it was a pivotal influence on improv comedy and shows like Saturday Night Live. Off-off Broadway groups such as the Living Theatre, La Mama, and Caffe Cino captured the spirit of nontraditional theater with their edgy, unscripted, boundary-crossing subjects. Yet, as Bottoms discovers, there is no one set of truths about off-off Broadway to uncover; the entire scene was always more a matter of competing perceptions than a singular, concrete reality. No other author has managed to illuminate this shifting tableau as Bottoms does. Through interviews with dozens of the era's leading playwrights, performers, directors, and critics, he unearths a countercultural theater movement that was both influential and transforming-yet ephemeral and quintessentially of its moment. Playing Underground will be a definitive work on the subject, offering a complete picture of an important but little-studied period in American theater.