Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists is a new series of innovative and exciting critical introductions to the work of internationally pioneering playwrights. The series includes well-established playwrights and offers primary materials on contemporary dramatists who are under-represented in secondary criticism. Each volume provides detailed cultural, historical and political material, examines selected plays in production, and theorises the playwright’s artistic agenda and working methods, as well as their contribution to the development of playwriting and theatre.
By Mary Luckhurst
December 12, 2014
One of Europe's greatest playwrights, Caryl Churchill has been internationally celebrated for four decades. She has exploded the narrow definitions of political theatre to write consistently hard-edged and innovative work. Always unpredictable in her stage experiments, her plays have stretched the ...
By Eszter Szalczer
October 27, 2010
Dramatist, theatre practitioner, novelist, and painter, August Strindberg’s diverse dramatic output embodied the modernist sensibility. He was above all one of the most radical innovators of Western theatre. This book provides an insightful assessment of Strindberg’s vital contribution to the ...
By Scott T. Cummings
July 12, 2012
Maria Irene Fornes is the most influential female American dramatist of the 20th century. That is the argument of this important new study, the first to assess Fornes's complete body of work. Scott T. Cummings considers comic sketches, opera libretti and unpublished pieces, as well as her ...
By David Bradby, Clare Finburgh
October 31, 2011
‘This volume is a gem. Written by two experts in modern French theater, whose stated objective is to render the complexity of Genet's work exhilarating rather than intimidating, the book bears witness to the continued political relevance and artistic power of one of the most controversial and ...
By Rose Whyman
August 11, 2010
Anton Chekhov offers a critical introduction to the plays and productions of this canonical playwright, examining the genius of Chekhov's writing, theatrical representation and dramatic philosophy. Emphasising Chekhov’s continued relevance and his mastery of the tragicomic, Rose Whyman provides an ...
By Maria M. Delgado
March 10, 2008
Immortalized in death by The Clash, Pablo Neruda, Salvador Dalí, Dmitri Shostakovich and Lindsay Kemp, Federico García Lorca's spectre haunts both contemporary Spain and the cultural landscape beyond. This study offers a fresh examination of one of the Spanish language’s most resonant voices; ...
By Maggie B. Gale
March 10, 2008
J. B. Priestley is the first book to provide a detailed and up to date analysis of the enormous contribution made by this playwright, novelist, journalist and critic to twentieth century British theatre. Priestley was often criticised for being either too populist or too experimental and this ...
By Barbara Ozieblo, Jerry Dickey
January 30, 2008
Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell presents critical introductions to two of the most significant American dramatists of the early twentieth century. Glaspell and Treadwell led American Theatre from outdated melodrama to the experimentation of great European playwrights like Ibsen, Strindberg and ...
