Series:

American Theatre

3 total works

Cover of American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1930-1969
This book concludes Gerald Bordman's survey of American non-musical theatre. It deals with the years 1930 to 1970, a period when the production of new plays was declining, but, at the same time, a period when American drama fully entered the world stage and became a dominant presence. Despite the looming presence of the film industry, this period was a golden age rich in plays, playwrights, and performers. From Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey into Night and Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, American theatre finally reached adulthood both dramatically and psychologically. In addition, many brilliant acting careers were launched or climaxed on the American stage, including Henry Fonda and Jessica Tandy, and foreign stars, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Bordman's study covers every Broadway production, and, increasingly in the 1950s and 1960s, every major off-Broadway show. His discussion moves season by season and show by show in chronological order; he offers plot synopses and details the physical production, directors, players, theaters, and newspaper reviews. Bordman stops at 1970, because, in his view, the decline in quantity and quality had reached an all time low, with British playwrights providing the only memorable dramas on the English-speaking stage. This book and the preceding volumes of The American Theatre stands as the standard history of American drama in all its aspects.

Cover of American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama 1869-1914
This three-volume work will accomplish for the American non-musical theatre what Bordman's American Musical Theatre did for our song-and-dance entertainments: it chronicles, in order by opening, every Broadway comedy and drama, show by show, season by season, offering a plot synopsis, principal players, and important statistics. Scenery and costumes are described where they might be of interest, and comments of the plays' contemporary critics are quoted. In many instances, extended excerpts from the play are included to give the reader a fuller understanding of its nuances and its period dialogue. Also included, and worked chronologically into the text, are details about cheap-priced, cliff-hanging melodramas, such as Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl and His Sister's Shame, which were among America's most popular diversions in theatres catering to blue-collar playgoers until silent films drew away their audiences. Examples of shows produced and designed for other than New York are included.
This volume deals with the great expansion of American theatre after the Civil War, the careers of such prominent actors and actresses as Edwin Booth, Mrs. Fiske, the Drew and Barrymore families, the first important American playwrights like Clyde Fitch, producers like David Belasco, and the influence of foreign plays and players. This stage history, besides giving a sense of each production, touches on the literary worth of the plays, provides brief biographies of major figures, and sets all of this against the economic and social backgrounds of the time. Readers will close the book feeling they, like their parents and grandparents, have sat through performances of these shows of another era.

Cover of American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama 1914-1930
This is the second volume in Bordman's monumental history of the non-musical American theatre. It analyses each Broadway show chronologically from 1914 to 1930 - the period when American drama was most prolific and productive.