Description: This ambitious collection of essays will cover American drama in its entirety-from its inception in colonial America, through its many incarnations in the nineteenth century, to its zenith in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Review Quotes: "This reviewer would recommend this handbook for any graduate dramatic literature or theatre history course; each essay displays a firm grasp of the era or subject for which it was written. It is best used in conjunction with the reading of a play or the writing of a paper concerning a particular aspect of American dramatic literature rather than as a resource substituting the reading, viewing, or staging of a play." --Rodney Donahue, Journal of American Culture
"There are more than a few 'handbooks, ' 'guidebooks, ' or 'companions to' out there, but The Oxford Handbook of American Drama is uncommon in its thorough and wide-ranging presentation of multiple topics.... Most impressive are the ways in which the book merges the familiar with the more shadowed corners of the American canon, and, in most cases, individual topics are each engagingly unpacked by a major scholar specializing in a particular subject.... The often astonishing, politically and emotionally wrenching, and riotously entertaining theatrical heritage of the United States is fully present here in chapters immersing the reader in the work of diverse artists, companies, historical issues, and recurring themes emerging from 350-plus years of the nation's still comparatively young existence." --Journal of Dramatic Theory & Criticism"Lead editor Jeffrey H. Richards, along with coeditor Heather S. Nathans, who completed the book after Richards's death...are among the leading scholars of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American stage, with a strong interest in surveying the rich and complex dramatic landscape before the modernist era.... [A]conspicuous feature of this collection is its thematic interconnections, with several key topics and issues treated in multiple essays spanning different historical periods." --Eugene O'Neill Review
"The Oxford Handbook of American Drama gathers short, evocative essays by well-known scholars into a comprehensive overview of the field.... Short, tightly focused essays balance the need for clear outlines and introductions with creative and probing forays into the field's central questions. Up-to-date citations and generous lists of sources ably guide scholars toward materials for further research. In short, it is-as one would expect from a major press-a well-conceived and executed handbook, a useful starting place for scholars new to the field and a valuable tool for those wishing to revisit the field's central ongoing discussions." --Early American Literature