History & Criticism

A Streetcar Named Desire

The Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award winning play—reissued with an introduction by Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), and Williams' essay "The World I Live In."

It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continue to have the same power and impact as when they first appeared—57 years after its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those plays. The story famously recounts how the faded and promiscuous Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her sexy and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Streetcar launched the careers of Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, and solidified the position of Tennessee Williams as one of the most important young playwrights of his generation, as well as that of Elia Kazan as the greatest American stage director of the '40s and '50s.

Who better than America's elder statesman of the theater, Williams' contemporary Arthur Miller, to write as a witness to the lightning that struck American culture in the form of A Streetcar Named Desire? Miller's rich perspective on Williams' singular style of poetic dialogue, sensitive characters, and dramatic violence makes this a unique and valuable new edition of A Streetcar Named Desire. This definitive new edition will also include Williams' essay "The World I Live In," and a brief chronology of the author's life.

Oedipus Rex - Literary Touchstone Edition

To make Oedipus more accessible for the modern reader, our Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition™ includes a glossary of the more difficult words, as well as convenient sidebar notes to enlighten the reader on aspects that may be confusing or overlooked. We hope that the reader may, through this edition, more fully enjoy the beauty of the verse, the wisdom of the insights, and the impact of the drama. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex has never been surpassed for the raw and terrible power with which its hero struggles to answer the eternal question, "Who am I?" The play, a story of a king who—acting entirely in ignorance—kills his father and marries his mother, unfolds with shattering power; we are helplessly carried along with Oedipus towards the final, horrific truth. This vibrant, new translation invites its readers to lose themselves in the unfolding of this tragic tale—as suspenseful as a detective mystery, yet with an outcome long ago determined by Fate.

Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)

Writing at the time of political and social crisis in Athens Aristophanes was an eloquent yet bawdy challenger to the demagogue and the sophist. The Achanians is a plea for peace set against the background of the long war with Sparta. In Lysistrata a band of women tap into the awesome power of sex in order to end a war. The darker comedy of The Clouds satirizes Athenian philosophers, Socrates in particular, and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being challenged.

Living Theatre: A History

Living Theatre: A History conveys the excitement and variety of theatre throughout time, as well as the dynamic way in which our interpretation of theatre history is informed by contemporary scholarship. Rather than presenting readers with a mere catalog of historical facts and figures, it sets each period in context through an exploration of the social, political and economic conditions of the day, creating a vivid study of the developments in theatre during that time.

Inherit the Wind

One of the most moving and meaningful plays in American theatre--based on the famed Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, in which a Tennessee teacher was tried for teaching evolution--now on Broadway starring Tony Award® Winners Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy, and Directed by Tony Award® Winner Doug Hughes

The accused was a slight, frightened man who had deliberately broken the law. His trial was a Roman circus, the chief gladiators being the two great legal giants of the century. Locked in mortal combat, they bellowed and roared imprecations and abuse. The spectators sat uneasily in the sweltering heat with murder in their hearts, barely able to restrain themselves. At stake was the freedom of every American.

“Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee were classic Broadway scribes who knew how to crank out serious plays for thinking Americans. . . . Inherit the Wind is a perpetually prescient courtroom battle over the legality of teaching evolution. . . . We’re still arguing this case–all the way to the White House.”
–Chicago Tribune

“Powerful . . . a crackling good courtroom play . . . [that] provides two of the juiciest roles in American theater.”
–Copley News Service

“[This] historical drama . . . deserves respect.”
–The Columbus Dispatch

The Essential Theatre

This text is a welcome and helpful resource whether you are a major looking forward to a career in the theatre, or a nonmajor interested in an overview to help you better appreciate theatre as an audience member. Written by highly respected theatre historians, THE ESSENTIAL THEATRE has established a reputation as one of the most comprehensive, authoritative surveys of the theatre in colleges nationwide. Its vibrant treatment of theatre practice-past and present-range from the origins of theatre to postmodernism and performance art. Chapter after chapter, this book will encourage you and get you excited about becoming an active theatergoer, while providing the insight and understanding that will enrich your theatre experience throughout your life.

The Empty Space: A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate

Peter Brook's career, beginning in the 1940s with radical productions of Shakespeare with a modern experimental sensibility and continuing to his recent work in the worlds of opera and epic theater, makes him perhaps the most influential director of the 20th century. Cofounder of the Royal Shakespeare Company and director of the International Center for Theater Research in Paris, perhaps Brook's greatest legacy will be The Empty Space. His 1968 book divides the theatrical landscape, as Brook saw it, into four different types: the Deadly Theater (the conventional theater, formulaic and unsatisfying), the Holy Theater (which seeks to rediscover ritual and drama's spiritual dimension, best expressed by the writings of Artaud and the work of director Jerzy Grotowski), the Rough Theater (a theater of the people, against pretension and full of noise and action, best typified by the Elizabethan theater), and the Immediate Theater, which Brook identifies his own career with, an attempt to discover a fluid and ever-changing style that emphasizes the joy of the theatrical experience. What differentiates Brook's writing from so many other theatrical gurus is its extraordinary clarity. His gentle illumination of the four types of theater is conversational, even chatty, and though passionately felt, it's entirely lacking in the sort of didactic bombast that flaws many similar texts. --John Longenbaugh

Theatre: Collaborative Acts

Plays for the Theatre (Wadsworth Series in Theatre)

Enhance your understanding and appreciation of theatre by going straight to the source-the play scripts! This anthology includes 15 plays that represent a wide historical range as well as the vibrant diversity of contemporary American theatre. An opening essay sets the context for each play, helping you to read with a more informed and analytical eye. The scripts also serve as a foundation that makes discussions of the various types of theatrical experience in your main text more meaningful.

History of the Theatre

The Ninth Edition retains all of the traditional features that have made History of the Theatre a classic for over thirty years, including over 530 photos and illustrations, useful maps, and the expertise of Oscar Brockett, one of the most widely respected theatre historians in the field. Franklin J. Hildy contributes his scholarship and experience throughout the book and, in particular, to a discussion of English Theatre/Shakespeare (Ch. 5). Reorganized with more uniform chapter lengths and a clearer chronology, the ninth edition continues to provide the most thorough and accurate assessment of theatre history available. For anyone involved with, or interested in, the theatre.