Description: This book offers the first in-depth look at avant-garde theatre in the United States from the early 1950s to the 1990s looking at its origins and its theoretical foundations through an examination of literature, cinema and art.
Review Quotes: ""American Avant-Garde Theatre offers its reader stimulating descriptions of subversive acts staged by the Living Theatre, the Open Theatre, Richard Foreman, Rober Wilson, the Wooster Group and, in lesser detail, Jack Smith, Reza Abdoh and a handful of others.."
-Daniel Mufson, "American Theatre
"Aronson ties his observations together with useful, sometimes amusing tidbits....."
-Daniel Mufson, "American Theatre
"Aronson's prose...avoids the often nebulous catch-phrases that clutter the more theoretical discussions of the same topic.."
-Daniel Mufson, "American Theatre
"Aronson's essential, engaging book treats another American theater--one equally significant and, in some respects, more fascinating.."
-J. Fisher, "Choice
"There is something delightfully practical about Arnold Aronson's "American Avant-Garde Theatre: A History. Concise, informed, and accessible, it is in many respects the primer that scholars have long sought for courses on US avant-garde theatre...the book offers an insightful look at some of the most widely celebrated moments in postwar US experimental performance."
-James Harding, Mary Washington College "Theatre Journal, March 2003