John F. Deeney

Maggie B. Gale

Fifty Modern and Contemporary and Dramatists is a critical introduction to the work of some of the most important and influential playwrights from the 1950s to the present day. The figures chosen are among the most widely studied by students of drama, theatre and literature and include such celebrated writers as: • Samuel Beckett • Caryl Churchill • Anna Deavere Smith • Jean Genet • Sarah Kane • Heiner Müller • Arthur Miller • Harold Pinter • Sam Shephard Each short essay is written by one of an international team of academic experts and offers a detailed analysis of the playwright’s key works and career. The introduction provides an historical and theatrical context to the volume, which provides an invaluable overview of modern and contemporary drama.

Fifty Modern and Contemporary Dramatists

Mark Ravenhill is the first book to provide a detailed analysis of the work of arguably the most important dramatist to have emerged from the British theatre over the past twenty years. Shopping and F***ing (1996), with its unrelenting representation of dysfunctional youth, dark humour and graphic sex and violence, was seen by many to uniquely capture the social and political fallout of a decade, and Ravenhill fast attained a status as the 'rude boy' of British theatre. However, the numerous labels that came to be attached to both the dramatist and his plays now stand as insufficient, masking a complex and frequently misunderstood practice. Using original interview material with the dramatist and his collaborators, together with reviews and criticism, the book argues how Ravenhill has sought not only to redefine the terms of engagement between the playwright and the contemporary theatre, but that his evolving dramaturgy opens up new and important questions about the relationship between playwriting and politics, culture and society in the new millennium.

Mark Ravenhill

A groundbreaking compilation of the key movements in the history of modern theatre. Each of the book’s parts comprises full reproductions of the plays that defined the period and key critical writings that inform and contextualise their reading. "Here is an anthology of plays and criticism that all teachers of drama should take seriously. The fresh angles and approaches the volume offers on topics such as naturalism, the historical avant-garde, and breakthrough works by innovative performance artists (e.g., Laurie Anderson, SuAndi) all argue in favor of this collection as required reading in courses on modern stagecraft." CHOICE, Feb 2011

From Modernism to Contemporary Performance

The Routledge Drama Anthology and Sourcebook

Maggie Barbara Gale

This is a compilation of the key movements in the history of modern theatre. Each of the book's parts comprises full reproductions of the plays that defined the period and key critical writings that inform and contextualise their reading.

John F. Deeney

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