The American stage : writing on theater from Washington Irving to Tony Kushner / Laurence Senelick, editor.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

From Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent. / Washington Irving -- Prologue for the Opening of the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia / Charles Sprague -- from History of the American Theatre / William Dunlap -- from Domestic Manners of the Americans / Frances Trollope -- Some Observations on the Theater of Democratic Peoples / Alexis de Tocqueville -- On Anna Cora Mowatt's Fashion / Edgar Allan Poe -- The Gladiator-Mr. Forrest-Acting ; Miserable State of the Stage ; The Old Bowery / Walt Whitman -- The Astor Place Riot / Philip Hone -- from Mimic Life; or, Before and Behind the Curtain / Anna Cora Mowatt -- The Menken ; The Model Artists ; The Minstrel Show / Mark Twain -- from The Journals / Charles King Newcomb -- About Nudity in Theatres / Olive Logan -- from The Genial Showman: The Church in the Theatre and the Theatre in the Church / Edward P. Hingston -- Notes on the Theatres ; from A Small Boy and Others / Henry James -- Clara Morris / Alan Dale -- The Art of Edwin Booth: Hamlet / William Winter -- Uncle Tom's Cabin ; Antony and Cleopatra (1) ; Antony and Cleopatra (2) / Willa Cather -- from The Spirit of the Ghetto: Theatres, Actors and Audience / Hutchins Hapgood -- Melodrama / Rollin Lynde Hartt -- My Most Successful Play / Lottie Blair Parker -- Stage Struck / Channing Pollock -- Some American Dramatic Material ; Hamlet / Stark Young -- "The Illusion of the First Time" in Drama / William Gillette -- Mr. James Joyce and the Modern Stage / Ezra Pound -- Mrs. Fiske on Ibsen the Popular / Alexander Woollcott -- Frank Wedekind / James G. Huneker -- The Painter and the Stage / Lee Simonson -- Mimi Aguglia as Salome / Carl Van Vechten -- The Jest / Dorothy Parker --

Mr. Belasco Explains ; Susan Glaspell / Ludwig Lewisohn -- Abie's Irish Rose Review and Bulletins / Robert Benchley -- I Gaspiri-"The Upholsterers": A Drama in Three Acts / Ring Lardner -- The Dæmonic in the American Theatre / Gilbert Seldes -- Burlesque Shows / Edmund Wilson -- The Negro and the American Stage / Alain Locke -- the old trouper / Don Marquis -- The Audience Emotion ; On Vaudeville ; Eugene O"Neill / George Jean Nathan -- The Days of Jig Cook ; Alla Nazimova / Djuna Barnes -- James A. and Katharine Herne / Hamlin Garland -- Cain's Warehouse / Sidney Skolsky -- Trouble with the Angels / Langston Hughes -- from Of Time and the River / Thomas Wolfe -- Waiting for Santy / S. J. Perelman -- Our Town ; Standards in Drama Criticism / Brooks Atkinson -- The Man Who Came to Dinner with George Kaufman Directing / Morton Eustis -- from Arena / Hallie Flanagan -- Some Thoughts on Playwriting / Thornton Wilder -- Audience Tomorrow: Preview in New Guinea / Elia Kazan -- A Streetcar Called Success / Mary McCarthy -- Tennessee Williams ; The Famous "Method" ; from The Theatre of the Thirties / Harold Clurman -- Even as You and I / John Mason Brown -- Terry Helburn / Frances Parkinson Keyes -- Folklore on Forty-Seventh Street ; from Bentley on Brecht / Eric Bentley -- The American Theater / Arthur Miller -- The Life and Death of Vaudeville / Fred Allen -- Barns / Walter Kerr -- Author and Director: A Delicate Situation / Tennessee Williams -- Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet ; The Commercialites ; Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House / Gore Vidal -- "Me tink me hear sounds in de night" / Lorraine Hansberry -- Which Theater Is the Absurd One? / Edward Albee -- The Becks' Living Theatre / Charles L. Mee, Jr. -- Boredom in the Theatre / John Simon -- El Teatro Campesino / Luis Valdéz -- Marat/Sade/Artaud / Susan Sontag -- A Short Statement on Street Theatre / Ed Bullins -- Notes on the New Theater / Elizabeth Hardwick -- from The Season / William Goldman -- from Notes on a Cowardly Lion / John Lahr -- from Run-Through: A Memoir / John Houseman -- from A Personal History of the American Theatre / Spalding Gray -- The Death of Broadway / Thomas M. Disch -- Gay Theatre / Charles Ludlam -- "Dolly" Goes Away / Frank Rich -- Heidi Chronicled / Wendy Wasserstein -- The Chitlin Circuit / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. -- The Problem Play / David Mamet -- from A Director Prepares: Terror / Anne Bogart -- Kushner on Miller / Tony Kushner.

Dawson