A sourcebook of contemporary and historical commentary on America's first popular mass entertainment.As the blackface minstrel show evolved from its beginnings in the American Revolution to its peak during the late 1800s, its frenetic dances, low-brow...

"It is a defect of God's humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them."--Tom Stoppard, Arcadia In a large country house in Derbyshire in April 1809 sits Lady Thomasina Coverly, aged thirteen, and her tutor, Septimus...

The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, both in the classroom and in the theatre, and this revision brings the Arden Third series edition right up-to-date. A completely new section of the introduction discusses new thinking about...

In Happy Days, Samuel Beckett pursues his relentless search for the meaning of existence, probing the tenuous relationships that bind one person to another, and each to the universe, top time past and time present. Once again, stripping theater to its...

This is the third and final volume of plays representing the only modern edition of Fielding's dramatic works. Most have not appeared in print for a century, and never previously in fully-edited form. Fielding is best known as a novelist but, like his...

Out of print virtually since its completion in 1914, Emma Goldman's pioneer work Social Significance in Modern Drama bridges modern drama and political philosophy, pointing out the road that remains to be travelled toward a theatre of social empowerment...

This series of twenty complementary essays by experts in the field explores the art, social status, reputation and image of the ancient actor in the Greek and Roman worlds, from the sixth century B.C. to the Byzantine period. It covers tragedy, comedy,...

A compelling drama of South African apartheid and a universal coming-of-age story, from "the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world" (Time).Originally produced in 1982, "Master Harold and the Boys" is now an acknowledged classic of the...

Here is the story, told firsthand through electric, deeply engaged writing, of America’s living theater, high and low, mainstream and experimental.Drawing on history, criticism, memoir, fiction, poetry, and parody, editor Laurence Senelick presents...

The American musical has achieved and maintained relevance to more people in America than any other performance-based art. This thoughtful history of the genre, intended for readers of all stripes, offers probing discussions of how American musicals,...