Understanding Plays

"Understanding Plays As Texts for Performance" offers sixteen plays with critical commentaries that span the range of Western writing for the theatre from the Greeks to the post-moderns. This text introduces students to dramatic writing as “ pre-texts” for theatrical performance-written to be performed by actors before audiences. In addition, it emphasizes playwriting conventions, elements, styles, trends, and movements to document changing dramaturgy and production practices in the West from Sophocles to Tony Kushner and Paula Vogel. Brief production histories and critical commentaries add to the student's understanding of the literature and the theatrical text as the basis for performance. New and Notable Features: Introduces students to the world of theatre with sixteen plays taken from theatrical history with extensive discussions of the types, elements, and styles of drama. Begins with an introduction that sets forth drama's vocabulary, methods, and conventions for generating theatrical excitement and meaning, especially helpful for the beginning student. Features five new plays that put students in touch with playwrights who are shaping today's theatre in America and that strengthen the presence of multicultural and women playwrights in the text. Includes an entirely new chapter on “ New” Docudrama and "The Laramie Project" by Moisis Kaufman, addressing a “ re-discovered” form for writing and performance for the contemporary theatre. Expands the chapter on the Intercultural Text demonstrating Latino/a and Asian-American playwriting, broadening the emphasis on multicultural and alternative voices in U.S. theatre. Closes with a section onplaywriting at the millennium featuring feminism, the "new" documentary text, solo performance, and interculturalism, exposing students to playwrights who are shaping the theatre of today and tomorrow.