Arguing that theatrical censorship coincides with significant challenges to religious, political and cultural traditions, John Houchin explores its impact on twentieth-century American theatre. Along with the well-known example of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, other almost equally influential events affected the course of the American stage during the century. After a summary of censorship in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, Houchin analyzes key political and theatrical events between 1900 and 2000.

The Provincetown Players was a major cultural institution in Greenwich Village from 1916 to 1922, when American Modernism was conceived and developed. This study considers the group's vital role, and its wider significance in twentieth century American culture. Describing the varied and often contentious response to modernity among the Players, Brenda Murphy reveals the central contribution of the group of poets around Alfred Kreymborg's Others magazine, including William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Mina Loy and Djuna Barnes, and such modernist artists as Marguerite and William Zorach,...

Jeffrey Richards examines a variety of phenomena connected to the stage, including closet Revolutionary political plays, British drama on American boards, American-authored stage plays, and poetry and fiction by early Republican writers. American theatre is viewed by Richards as a transatlantic hybrid in which British theatrical traditions provide material and templates by which Americans express themselves and their relationship to others. Through intensive analysis of plays, this book confronts matters of political, ethnic, and cultural identity by moving from play text to theatrical...

The American Stage and the Great Depression: A Cultural History of the Grotesque proposes a correlation between the divided "mind" of America during the Depression and popular stage works of the era, which are interpreted as theatrical reflections of Depression culture's sense of being trapped between a discredited past and a nightmarish future. The author analyzes the 1930s as an era of the grotesque, in which the irreconcilable were forced into tense and dynamic coexistence.

Performing the American Frontier, 1870-1906 examines how the American frontier was presented in theatrical productions during the critical period from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of film. From famous personages such as Mark Twain and "Buffalo Bill" Cody to lesser known individuals such as Native American playwright and actress Gowongo Mohawk, Hall examines the plays, the players, and the playwrights who helped to define the American westward migration in theatrical terms and covers the complete dramatic experience including scenery, performance, and staging.