Elmer Rice: A Research and Production Sourcebook (Modern Dramatists Research and Production Sourcebooks) - Hardcover

Vanden Heuvel, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0313274312 ISBN 13: 9780313274312

Publisher: Greenwood, 1996

Synopsis

As one of the most outstanding and innovative playwrights of the 20th century, Elmer Rice made and sustained his reputation with a series of hit plays and provocative experimental work which, next to the output of Eugene O'Neill, remains the most varied canon of theatrical writing produced by an American dramatist. This reference book overviews his life and career and provides plot synopses and critical commentaries for his plays. The volume also provides cast and credit lists for major productions and an exhaustive bibliography of primary and secondary materials.

When critics of the mid-twentieth century ranked American playwrights, they often had to pause before promoting Eugene O'Neill over Elmer Rice as first among his peers. Like O'Neill, Rice had an astoundingly long and productive life in the American theatre. He made and sustained his reputation with a series of hit plays and provocative experimental work which, next to the output of O'Neill, remains the most varied canon of dramatic literature produced by an American playwright. This reference book is a thorough guide to Rice's fascinating career.

This book makes Rice's writings accessible to a wide audience and reveals just how extensive his works are. He was a voluminous writer of letters, articles, and diatribes as well as plays, memoirs, and novels. This sourcebook offers a chronology of his achievements, along with plot synopses and critical overviews of each produced or published play. Theatre researchers will find cast lists and an exhaustive bibliography of reviews of productions, while the listing of archival sources should be of help to those wishing to explore his canon in greater depth. The short biography illuminates Rice's involvement at all levels of cultural production, as a playwright, producer, director, teacher, and polemicist for various theatrical and political causes.

About this title

Book Description

A comprehensive guide to Elmer Rice's plays and other writings, with an exhaustive bibliography of primary works and scholarship.

About the Author

MICHAEL VANDEN HEUVEL is Associate Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Humanities at Arizona State University, where he teaches courses in postmodern culture and contemporary American and European drama. He is the author of Performing Drama/Dramatizing Performance: Alternative Theatre and the Dramatic Text (1991), and his articles have appeared in journals such as New Theatre Quarterly, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, and Theatre Journal.

Edition details

• Publisher: Greenwood
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0313274312
• ISBN 13: 9780313274312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256