Drama

Every day, in some part of the world, an Arthur Miller play is performed.In the nearly 60 years since its first production, the Pulitzer Prizewinning Death of a Salesman has been become a classic, a staple of school anthologies of American literature and of acting companies' repertoires. It has received worldwide productions, whether as a study of parent-child relationships, as in its landmark 1976 production directed by Miller in Beijing, or as a critique of Western capitalism and has been filmed once for television and twice for movies.

Filmed in 1987, this exclusive interview sees BBC Omnibus talk to the great American playwright at his Connecticut home about the political and poetic nature of his plays, about being a writer in the US during the late twentieth century, and about his marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Miller talks in detail about his seminal plays - All My Sons, A View from the Bridge, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and After the Fall - as well as his experience with the House Un-American Activities Committee and his time as President of PEN International.

Arthur Miller himself adapted his Pultizer Prize-winning modern tragedy for this 1966 television production, with Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock reprising their original Broadway roles as the Lomans. This classic production toys with time in its shattering telling of a middle-aged man at the end of his emotional rope.

This is a collection of thirteen original essays from a team of leading scholars in the field. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors cover a healthy sampling of Williams's works, from the early apprenticeship years in the 1930s through to his last play before his death in 1983, Something Cloudy, Something Clear. In addition to essays on such major plays as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, among others, the contributors also consider selected minor plays, short stories, poems, and biographical concerns. The Companion also features a chapter on selected key productions as well as a bibliographic essay surveying the major critical statements on Williams.

General introduction to the playwright, their major works, and reprints of major critical essays. Click on "Table of Contents" (left side) to see a list of individual article and jump directly to them.

This Young Vic production was recorded through National Theatre Live on 16th September, 2014.

This chapter introduces Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play A Raisin in the Sun. Specific topics include the Hansberry family’s Supreme Court case over discriminatory housing, Hansberry’s premature death from cancer, her being inaccurately portrayed in the media as a meek and apolitical figure, her political activism, the FBI’s investigation of the play on suspicion of communist content, the narrative and symbolic significance of the life insurance money, the play’s representation of diverse African American perspectives on social mobility in a racially hostile environment, and the ominous notes that accompany the play’s ostensibly happy ending.

1961 film starring Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil.

Each chapter is devoted to a single playwright and provides an overview of their career, a description and critical evaluation of their work, as well as a sense of their reception. Drawing on primary sources, including the playwrights’ own commentaries and notes, and contemporary reviews, Christopher Bigsby enters into a dialogue with plays which are as various as the individuals who generated them.

The author investigates the interwoven themes of home, hate, and history in Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park (2011) and Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Beneatha’s Place (2013). Each play confronts racism through the filter of humor to address how the specter of race influences individual and community efforts to realize the “American Dream” of home ownership, prosperity, and equality for all.

A white family has just put their house on the market and are soon showing it to an interested black family. The neighbors begin to gossip and soon the white family becomes the target of harassment and threats by bigoted residents in the community, who do not want a black family in the neighborhood.

Fifty Modern and Contemporary Dramatists is a critical introduction to the work of some of the most important and influential playwrights from the 1950s to the present day. 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.

This book reveals the link between the rise of radical monologue in the late 20th century and history of speechmaking, politics, civil rights, individual freedom and the American Dream in the United States. It shows how US artists are speaking back to the cultural, political and economic forces that shape the world.

In Talk to Me, Smith looks back at a singular career as a seeker and interpreter of language in America, revealing the methodology behind her extraordinary search for the truth and nuances of verbal communication. For thirty years, the defining thesis of Smith's work has been that how we speak is just as important in communicating truth and identity as what we say. Everything from individual vocal tone to grammar, Smith demonstrates, can be as identifiable and revealing as a fingerprint. Her journey has taken her from the rarefied bastions of academia to riot-torn streets; she has conducted hundreds of interviews with subjects ranging from women prisoners to presidents of the United States.

An original two-hour documentary marking the 25th anniversary of the infamous L.A. riots that reexamines the intense and life-changing events through the eyes of those who lived it.

This reference book serves as a versatile vehicle for exploring the field of Asian American drama from its recorded conception to its present stage. Included are alphabetically arranged entries for 52 Asian American dramatists of origins from India, Pakistan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and China. Each entry includes relevant biographical information that contextualizes the works of a playwright, an interpretive description of selected plays that spotlights recurring themes and plots, a summary of the playwright's critical reception, and a bibliography of primary and secondary works.

For thirty years, from 1910 to 1940, Angel Island in San Francisco Bay was the first, often the only, toehold in America for immigrants from China. During the time they spent on the island, as little as a few days, as long as three years, they carved and ink brushed their concerns onto the walls of their barracks. One hundred thirty-five calligraphic poems survived, first discovered by a Federal park ranger after Angel Island was abandoned in 1940. These tell of voyages from China, detainment on the island, attitudes toward the first Americans encountered -- immigration officials and social workers -- and finally the disappointments and triumphs of the immigrants.

Carved in Silence tells the story of Chinese immigrants who were detained at the United States Immigration Station at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay during the little known Chinese Exclusion era. The film examines the genesis of racially discriminatory immigration policies, its reality, and its consequences. Interviews are intercut with historical footage and dramatic re-enactments to powerfully translate the impact of public policies into human terms.

Each chapter is devoted to a single playwright and provides an overview of their career, a description and critical evaluation of their work, as well as a sense of their reception. Drawing on primary sources, including the playwrights’ own commentaries and notes, and contemporary reviews, Christopher Bigsby enters into a dialogue with plays which are as various as the individuals who generated them.

Traces Islamophobia as a phenomenon from history and attempts to break some myths dominant in contemporary literature.

Like many immigrants, Arab-Americans are torn between their adopted country and their homeland, between modern American culture and ancient traditions. Now, as they wrestle with their place in wartime America, CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE gives voice to a three people whose stories we need to hear.

Streaming video of the 2002 feature film adaptation of "Real Women Have Curves."

Fifty Key Figures in Latin American and Latinx Theatre is a critical introduction to the most influential and innovative theatre practitioners in the Americas, all of whom have been pioneers in changing the field. Each entry considers the artist's or collective's body of work in its historical, cultural, and political context and provides a brief biography and suggestions for further reading.

Lopez's play 'Real Women Have Curves' explores the interconnected oppressions of class, gender, race, and immigration status while highlighting the political consciousness and solidarity developed among working-class women in a sewing factory.

Made in L.A. traces the moving transformation of three Latina garment workers on the fault lines of global economic change who decide they must resist. Through a groundbreaking lawsuit and consumer boycott, they fight to establish an important legal and moral precedent holding an American retailer liable for the labor conditions under which its products are manufactured. But more than this, Made in L.A. provides an insider's view into both the struggles of recent immigrants and into the organizing process itself: the enthusiasm, discouragement, hard-won victories and ultimate self-empowerment.

Responding to an increasing need for critical perspectives and methodologies, this collection traces the historical dimensions of Native North American drama through overviews of major developments, individual playwrights' perspectives, and in-depth critical analyses. Bringing together writers and scholars from the United States, Canada, and Europe, Indigenous North American Drama provides the first comprehensive outline of this vibrant genre. It also acknowledges the wide diversity of styles and perspectives that have helped shape contemporary Native North American theater itself. This interdisciplinary introduction offers a basis for new readings of Native American and First Nations literature at large.

Native performance is a multifaceted and changing art form as well as a swiftly growing field of research. Native American Performance and Representation provides a wider and more comprehensive study of Native performance, not only its past but also its present and future. Contributors use multiple perspectives to look at the varying nature of Native performance strategies. They consider the combination and balance of the traditional and modern techniques of performers in a multicultural world. This collection presents diverse viewpoints from both scholars and performers in this field, both Natives and non-Natives.

This book begins with the emergence of peoples in North America and traces their stories to the beginning of the early twentieth-first century. The narrative rests on the premise that indigenous nations retain sovereign rights, and it explores the ways in which contests over those rights shaped their histories

Revolving around a teen drop-in center called Planet Youth, the film explores the pain of stereotypes, the importance of peer support, and the ambivalence towards identity experience by a group of First Nations teens in Prince Rupert, British Columbia.