American Women Playwrights of the Twentieth Century PDF Download

Author: Ashley Swetnam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American drama
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Author: Zoe Desti-Demanti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317776380
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
First published in 1999. Although contemporary feminist criticism has mainly focused upon American women playwrights of the twentieth century-women, there is evidence that a feminist tradition rooted deep in the nationalistic and democratic impulses of the American nation existed more than a hundred years before these women started writing. It may come as a surprise to some readers that a significant but overlooked number of women playwrights vitally contributed to the development of early American drama. This study covers the period between 1775 and 1860, a time when American men and women struggled to define themselves and their place in response to the radical economic and institutional transformations which characterized that period. Based on the assumption that women's experience of the world differs from men's, the author tries to show that the plays of my study are sites of gender inscriptions as well as collective evidence that late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century men and women were affected differently by the economic, political, and social changes that were taking place in America at that time.

Author: Yvonne Shafer
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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This book presents an analysis of the many plays written by women in the American theatre in the first half of the century. Such playwrights as Rachel Crothers, Zona Gale, Susan Glaspell, Edna Ferber, and Lillian Hellman were popular and successful contributors to the stage. Many of their plays won such awards as the Pulitzer Prize, the Drama Critics Circle Award, and Tony Awards. The plays are discussed in terms of their popular and critical value and placed within the historical and social background of the period. In this time of intense change for women in American society, the plays reflect the new demands for freedom, careers, the right to vote, equality with men, and the right to intellectual development. Shafer calls attention to many fine plays which deserve production today.

Author: Brenda Coven
Publisher: Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Author: Christy Gavin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113652147X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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This Guide includes the primary and secondary works and summaries of plays of 15 prominent African American women playwrights including Lorraine Hansberry, Ntozake Shange, Adrienne Kennedy, Alice Childress, Zora Neale Hurston, Georgia Douglas Johnson. During the last 10 to 15 years, critical consideration of contemporary as well as earlier black women playwrights has blossomed. Plays by black women are increasingly anthologized and two recently published anthologies devote themselves solely to black women dramatists. In light of the growing interest in scholarship concerning African American women playwrights, researchers and librarians need a bibliographical source that brings together the profiles interviews, critical material and primary sources of black female playwrights. This guide will provide a bibliographical essay reviewing the scholarship of black women playwrights as well as for each playwright: a biography, summaries of each play detailed annotations of secondary material, and list of primary sources.

Author: Maureen Howard
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816607966
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Seven American Women Writers of the Twentieth Century was first published in 1977. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Author: Frances Diodato Bzowski
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN: 0313242380
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The first three decades of the twentieth century saw the New Woman writing an astonishing array of dramatic presentations. This checklist, gleaned from hundreds of library collections and out-of-print anthologies, reveals over 12,000 plays by perhaps 2,000 American women. Some of these works are well known, most are not; some are of enduring literary quality, probably most are not; but all are of social significance and serve to document women's history of the period. Included in a broad definition of play, are dramas and comedies, musicals, farces, monologues and dialogues, pageants and masques, stunts and exercises, operas and cantatas. In addition to adult drama, there are numerous plays written for children and for holiday celebrations. A vast amount of dramatic material was written for amateur theatre, school and church productions, and community events. The sheer volume of these mostly unrewarded contributions is noteworthy, and this checklist should be consulted by researchers in women's studies as well as drama. Playwrights include such noted writers as Susan Glaspell and Zora Neale Hurston in addition to many unremembered women, some of whom have entries for scores of plays. The playwrights are listed in alphabetical order with their works following. Information is given on life dates as known, and the playwrights are keyed to inclusion in major biographical reference books if relevant. The type of dramatic presentation and number of acts is indicated, as is production and publication information as available; and, in almost all cases, at least one library or anthology source is given, coded to a list in the front of the book. Appendixes record contributions to several anthologies, and a selected bibliography completes the work.

Author: Brenda Murphy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521576802
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This volume addresses the work of women playwrights throughout the history of the American theatre, from the early pioneers to contemporary feminists. Each chapter introduces the reader to the work of one or more playwrights and to a way of thinking about plays. Together they cover significant writers such as Rachel Crothers, Susan Glaspell, Lillian Hellman, Sophie Treadwell, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, Megan Terry, Ntozake Shange, Adrienne Kennedy, Wendy Wasserstein, Marsha Norman, Beth Henley and Maria Irene Fornes. Playwrights are discussed in the context of topics such as early comedy and melodrama, feminism and realism, the Harlem Renaissance, the feminist resurgence of the 1970s and feminist dramatic theory. A detailed chronology and illustrations enhance the volume, which also includes bibliographical essays on recent criticism and on African-American women playwrights before 1930.

Author: Penny Farfan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1137270802
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Breaking new ground in this century, this wide-ranging collection of essays is the first of its kind to address the work of contemporary international women playwrights. The book considers the work of established playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, Marie Clements, Lara Foot-Newton, Maria Irene Fornes, Sarah Kane, Lisa Kron, Young Jean Lee, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Djanet Sears, Caridad Svich, and Judith Thompson, but it also foregrounds important plays by many emerging writers. Divided into three sections-Histories, Conflicts, and Genres-the book explores such topics as the feminist history play, solo performance, transcultural dramaturgies, the identity play, the gendered terrain of war, and eco-drama, and encompasses work from the United States, Canada, Latin America, Oceania, South Africa, Egypt, and the United Kingdom. With contributions from leading international scholars and an introductory overview of the concerns and challenges facing women playwrights in this new century, Contemporary Women Playwrights explores the diversity and power of women's playwriting since 1990, highlighting key voices and examining crucial critical and theoretical developments within the field.

Author: Sally Burke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Burke's study examines works intensely feminist in their message - the suffrage plays of the early women's movement, the social protest dramas of the 1920s and 1930s, the plays advocating equal rights from the late 1960s onward - and those whose feminism seems an almost unintentional part of their content. Lillian Hellman, who professed no special interest in women's issues and disdained discussions of herself as a "woman" playwright, nonetheless addressed in her dramas numerous feminist themes, including women's need for financial independence, the treatment of women as possessions, the crippling effects of male dominance, and society's attitudes toward lesbianism. In the latter half of the 20th century a number of feminist playwrights integrated into their dramatic consciousness an awareness of racism.