History of Drama
American Drama
Early American Drama
• The American Company, managed by David Douglass, was the first
professional company to produce plays in the American colonies.
• The first production was The Prince of Parthia in 1767 in Philadelphia.
• The first actual theatre was built in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1716, but no
trace is left of it.
• The Contrast by Royall Taylor was the first American comedy to achieve
professional success.
Early American Actors
• The first actors on American stages
were English professional troupes
who presented popular London plays.
• Ira Aldridge (1804-1867) was the first
African American actor to achieve
international fame.
• He travelled overseas to perform in London and Russia,
portraying such roles as Shakespeare’s Othello and King Lear.
Early American Actors
• Charlotte Cushman (1816-1876) was the first
American woman to gain success.
• She also travelled abroad
and performed in England,
popularizing the practice of
women playing male roles
by portraying characters
such as Hamlet and Romeo.
Early American Actors
• Edwin Booth (1833-1893) is one of
the greatest American romantic
actors.
• His career came to a halt when his
brother, John Wilkes Booth, also a
well-known actor, assassinated
President Abraham Lincoln.
• Edwin retired and never again appeared again in
Washington D.C.
American Playwrights
• Beginning in the 1920s, American theatre became
innovative and experimental.
• Plays began exploring and explaining the social
problems that have long affected the lives of American
citizens.
• Topics once too controversial for public discussion could
now be safely examined in the anonymity of a darkened
theatre
American Playwrights
• Leading the way was Eugene O’Neill.
• His tragedies deal with issues ranging from
interpersonal relationships to faith.
• His most famous work is
Ah, Wilderness, which
deals with a teenager and
his coming of age.
American Playwrights
• Clifford Odets developed
theatre of social protest
in the 1930s.
• Wrote predominately about
the Great Depression, and is
most famous for composing
Waiting for Lefty.
American Playwrights
• Arthur Miller won the Pulitzer Prize and Drama Desk
Critics Award.
• Became the greatest
American writer of social
and political tragedy.
• Famous for Death of a
Salesman and The Crucible.
American Playwrights
• Thornton Wilder examines everyday life in a
small town in Our Town.
American Playwrights
• As the 20th Century
progressed, new
playwrights wrote about
the problems in American
society.
• James Baldwin influenced the civil rights
movement of the 1960s with his plays Blues for
Mister Charlie and Amen Corner.
American Playwrights
• Lorraine Hansberry wrote about a variety of social
issues, including equality for women and family
solidarity.
• She was the first African
American and the youngest
person to win the New York
Drama Critics Circle Award.
American Playwrights
• Hansberry is most famous for the award-winning
A Raisin in the Sun.
• About an African American family
struggling with poverty in 20th
Century Chicago.
• Has been compared to Arthur Miller’s
Death of a Salesman, although this story
concludes with a sense of hope.
American Playwrights
• Susan Glaspell was known as
the playwright of woman’s
selfhood.
• Influenced the feminist
movement in the 20th Century.
• Her most critically acclaimed work is Trifles.
American Playwrights
• David Mamet wrote plays dealing with loneliness,
gender conflict, and the difference between reality and
myth.
• Wrote in quick and pointed
dialogue.
• His works include Glengarry Glen
Ross and Oleanna.
American Playwrights
• August Wilson’s plays
examine African
Americans in the 20th
Century.
• His goal was to ask
questions about society
and answer them in his
plays.
• Famous for writing the Pulitzer Prize winning play, Fences.
American Playwrights
• Beth Henley, famous for
Crimes of the Heart,
examines the emotional
struggles of southern
women and their
families .
American Playwrights
• Ntozake Shange gained critical
acclaim for his play, For Colored Girls
who Have Considered Suicide/When
the Rainbow is Enuf.
• Deals with the experiences of
women who feel isolated from
the rest of society.
• In 2009 it was brought to the big screen in For Colored
Girls starring Janet Jackson and Whoopi Goldberg.
American Playwrights
• Neil Simon was one of the most prolific writers of the
20th Century, producing comedies rather than tragedies
or social dramas.
• His plays are known for being both
universal and personal.
• Famous for Barefoot in the Park, The
Odd Couple, and Fools.
American Playwrights
• The later 20th Century saw plays based on the gay
civil rights movement.
• Tony Kushner’s world-renowned
play Angels in America deals with
the AIDs epidemic of the 1980s.
American Playwrights
• Angels in
America won
the Pulitzer
Prize for Drama
as well as two
Tony Awards.
• Was later filmed for HBO with a cast headed by Al
Pacino and Meryl Streep.
American Playwrights
• In 2000, Moises Kaufman
and the members of the
Tectonic Theater Project
produced a docu-drama
called The Laramie Project.
• A docu-drama is a play that
features dramatized
reenactments of historical
events.
American Playwrights
• The Laramie Project is about the reallife murder of a Wyoming student
who was killed for being gay.
• The playwrights
conducted hundred
of interviews with
people from the
town of Laramie,
Wyoming.
American Playwrights
• All of the characters of the play
are real people.
• Their lines consist of word-for-word
documentation from the interviews.
• The play was also adapted into a film
starring an ensemble cast of over 30
actors, including Christina Ricci,
Laura Linney, and Steve Buscemi.