1st Edition
Edward Albee and the Emergence of Difference and Diversity in US and World Theatre 1950s-1970s
Introduction
David A. Crespy and Les Gray
PART I: Albee & LGBTQ Theatre & Performance, Ageism, and Latinx Drama
Chapter 1. The New Conservatory Theatre Story: Activist Action Moments in Progressive Theatres of Identity
Andrew Black
Chapter 2. Reviving Medusa’s Revenge, New York City’s First Lesbian Theater Space
Lesley Broder
Chapter 3. “Different Rewards”: Queer Gerontological Models in the Dramaturgy of Edward Albee, Terrence McNally, and Lanford Wilson
Vanessa Marie Campagna
Chapter 4. The Making of an American Master Playwright: A History of Lanford Wilson’s Home Free! and the Albee-Barr-Wilder Playwrights Unit
Derek R. Munson
Chapter 5. Whatever happened to Grandma?: Women and Aging in Edward Albee’s The Sandbox (1960) and The American Dream (1961)
Zoe Detsi and Antonia Tsamouri
Chapter 6. “I know this game, you're playing. I know it very well”: Albee as Influence and Counterpoint to Crowley’s The Boys in the Band
Ronald J. Zank
Chapter 7. Albee, Fornés, and the Next Generation of Grotesque Theater
Virginia Martinez
PART II: Albee and the Emergence of African-American Theatre
Chapter 8. Staging Politics of the Black Blues Bodies: Edward Albee’s The Death of Bessie Smith in Conversation with August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Les Gray
Chapter 9. Visited by a Phantom: Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse Encounter with Edward Albee
David A. Crespy
Chapter 10. The Emergence of Identity and Protest through the Rhetorical Genre of American Absurdism
Nigel O’Hearn
Chapter 11. “I am an American Writer Too”: James Baldwin as Emergent Playwright
Anthony P. Pennino
Chapter 12. Lorraine Hansberry and Anti-Colonial Drama on the Broadway Stage
Dave Peterson
Chapter 13. Student as Citizen: Illuminating Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun with Albee’s Plays of 1959
Jonathan M. Rizzardi
Chapter 14. As a Black Woman Speaks and Dances: Embracing Intersectionality in Richards’ A Black Woman Speaks (1950) and Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (1976)
Anastasia Vitanopoulou
Biography
David A. Crespy is Professor of Playwriting, Acting, Theatre History, and Dramatic Literature at the University of Missouri, USA.
Les Gray is a dramaturg, collaborator, writer, and occasional performer. Their work has been featured in “Youth Theatre Journal” and “The Professor Is In.”
