Historical Dictionary of the American Theater: Modernism by Felicia Hardison LondrZ and James Fisher covers the theatrical practice and practitioners as well as the dramatic literature of the United States of America from 1880 to 1929.

This is the first full-length study devoted to the art of A.R. Gurney, a major contemporary American playwright who has written over thirty plays, including Love Letters. This volume brings together original interviews with Gurney and four actors and a director who have worked closely with him, as well as essays by leading theater scholars on the range of Gurney's work.

Why do some people retain cute baby-talk names for their relatives (like "Num-Num" and "Pee-Paw") well into middle age? How should a reasonable person respond when Olivia Newton-John sings, "Have you never been mellow?" Who's responsible for the sorry state of men's fashion, and is it the same guy who invented the jerkin? Is there any future in being a Midwesterner? Can you really enjoy your lunch when the restaurant is decorated to look like an African plain? How come women keep dozens of bottles and jars of moisturizers, unguents, and lotions around -- all of them half empty?

In more than 50 hilarious all-new essays, one of America's brightest young humorists -- the head writer and on-air host of the legendary TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 -- finds the fun in all aspects of the human condition, no matter how absurd. Join Mike Nelson on an angst-filled visit to a health spa; shopping sessions at Home Depot and Radio Shack; adventures in the very amateur musical theater; a gut-busting discourse on the history of television; ruminations on his roles as husband, father, and citizen; and much, much more.

Is the fundamental relationship between an actor and an audience an equal and active one, or is it a situation that encourages passivity and division? This is the question at the heart of Augusto Boal's revolutionary Theatre of the Oppressed, originally published in 1979. Boal, a Brazilian artist and activist, has written a work that challenges the very premise of Western theater, starting with Aristotle and the first dramatists, and explores what social constructs lie behind the traditional theater form.

Is theater really dead? Does the theater, as its champions insist, really provide a more intimate experience than film? If so, how have changes in cinematic techniques and technologies altered the relationship between stage and film? What are the inherent limitations of representing three-dimensional spaces in a two-dimensional one, and vice versa?American Drama in the Age of Film examines the strengths and weaknesses of both the dramatic and cinematic arts to confront the standard arguments in the film-versus-theater debate.