This book concludes Gerald Bordman's acclaimed survey of American non-musical theatre. It deals with the years 1930 to 1969, a period when the number of yearly new plays was shrinking, but a period during which American drama as a whole entered the world stage and became a dominant force. With works like Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, American theater finally reached adulthood both dramatically and psychologically. Bordman's lively, authoritative study covers every Broadway production, as well as 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. This book stands together with the preceding volumes of American Theatre as the premier history of American drama.

The American Theatre series discusses every Broadway production chronologically--show by show and season by season. It offers plot summaries, production details, names of leading actors and actresses--the roles they played, as well as any special or unusual aspects of individual shows. This second volume in the series, covers what is probably the richest period in American theater, the years 1914 through 1930. Bordman includes most of Eugene O'Neill's work, along with playwrights as diverse as Elmer Rice and George Kaufman. Among the era's stars one finds John and Ethel Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Katherine Cornell, and Lynn Fontaine and Alfred Lunt. Considering the sheer number of productions, American theater climbed to its all-time high in the 1920s; by mid-decade, nearly 300 new plays appeared on Broadway each year. America saw more theatrical activity--in every sense of the word-- than any time before or since.

Volume Four of the distinguished American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama series offers a thorough, candid, and fascinating look at the theater in New York during the last decades of the twentieth century.