Theater: A Guide to Library Resources: American Theater

This title and its two companion volumes listed below provide facts about resident American acting companies, including dates, places, personnel, policies, and repertories of the most durable theatrical groups. Each entry includes dates and locations of the company's operations, names of managers with information about their artistic and business practices, as well as facts about key performers, designers, technicians, and other support personnel. An added dimension is provided in the analysis of each group's repertory and assessment of its commercial and artistic achievement. A bibliography of published sources used in the entry, as well as a guide to archival resources for further study are included.

Arranged in an A-Z format, this encyclopedia covers producers, writers, composers, lyricists, set designers, theaters, performers, shows and landmarks. Illustrated, cross-referenced, indexed and with a full bibliography, this work provides a comprehensive history of Broadway extending from its beginnings to the new millennium, a full revision of entries from the first edition, and entries on the most noteworthy productions and shows. (abridged publisher description)

Documentation for approximately three hundred shows, from 1898 to 1981, is provided in part I. The title of each show is followed by its theatre, opening date, number of performances, complete list of creative personnel, cast credits, and, where appropriate, a list of the shoW's songs. Each entry also contains a plot summary, a survey of critical comment, and, where significant, an analysis of the shoW's historical context. Part II includes biographical entries for major performers, writers, and directors, and notes on those organizations which encouraged the growth and development of black theatre in New York City. The Dictionary concludes with a chronology of all shows included in the text, a discography of black shows, and a selected bibliography of studies related to black theatre history and criticism.

These volumes provide factual data and anecdotal and analytical description of every legitimate play, musical, revue, or revival staged in the New York professional theater and reviewed by the press during the decades covered. Appendices offer listings of plays chronologically and in categories as well as play sources, awards, information on theatres, institutional theatres, and foreign companies, reviewers, and various statistics. Selected bibliographies and indexes of names and titles included.

Contains an introductory overview to ethnic theatre followed by 19 original essays (e.g., Armenian-American Theatre, Yiddish Theatre in the United States) that cover particular ethnic theater traditions, as well as their social, educational, and political importance. Appendixes, bibliographies, and a general index.

"collects in a single volume biographies of more than one hundred notable figures whose careers flourished in the years before the 1969 Stonewall Riots marked the beginning of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement in the United States...The Gay and Lesbian Theatrical Legacy collects biographies and portraits of influential actors, playwrights, composers, directors, designers, dancers, producers, managers, critics, choreographers, and technicians who made their mark on the American theater." [publisher]

Identifies representative African American theater-producing organizations and chronicles their contributions to the field from its birth in 1816 to the present. Includes a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on actors, directors, playwrights, plays, theater producing organizations, themes, locations, and theater movements and awards.

Covers the history of theater as well as the literature of America from 1538 to 1880. The years covered by this volume features the rise of the popular stage in American during the colonial era and the first century of the United States of America, with an emphasis on its practitioners, including such figures as Lewis Hallam, David Douglass, Mercy Otis Warren, Edwin Forrest, Charlotte Cushman, Joseph Jefferson, Ida Aldridge, Dion Boucicault, Edwin Booth, and many others.

A guide to the American stage from its beginnings to the present, the volume includes playwrights, plays, actors, directors, producers, songwriters, famous playhouses, dramatic movements, etc. The book covers classic works (such as Death of a Salesman) as well as many commercially successful plays (such as Getting Gertie's Garter), plus entries on foreign figures that have influenced dramatic development in the US (from Shakespeare to Beckett and Pinter). New entries include recent plays such as Angels in America and Six Degrees of Separation, performers such as Eric Bogosian and Bill Irwin, playwrights like David Henry Hwang and Wendy Wasserstein, and relevant developments and issues including AIDS in American theatre, theatrical producing by Disney, and the rise in solo performance. (Publisher's description, abridged)

With more than two thousand entries, this book offers information on musicals, performers, composers, lyricists, producers, choreographers, and more. Many musicals written specifically for television are included, and many entries follow a work as it moves across genres, from stage, to film, to television.The Companion also includes cross references, a comprehensive listing of recommended recordings, and a useful chronological listing of all the musicals described in the book.

Chronicles, by decade, year, and date, the history of theater on Broadway from 1826 through 1997. Provides information on award winners and number of productions by year. Indexed. Illustrated. Includes a bibliography

Coverage extends from the genre's nineteenth century beginnings to the present day. Included are entries on over 300 individual shows, musical series, performers, composers, lyricists, librettists, directors, designers, music directors, orchestrators, choreographers, producers, producing companies and other theatrical institutions.