American Playwriting and the Anti-Political Prejudice: Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Perspectives [Hardcover]

Twenty years after Tony Kushner's influential Angels in America seemed to declare a revitalized potency for the popular political play, there is a "No Politics" prejudice undermining US production and writing. This book explores the largely unrecognized cultural patterns that discourage political playwriting on the contemporary American stage.Introduction. No Politics, Please, We're American 1. "Politics" 2. The Case of Kushner 3. Reception and the Anti-Political Prejudice in America 4. State of the Nation: UK and US 5. American Shenanigans 6. Wendy Wasserstein's Washington 7. Erasing the Playwright Conclusion

American Playwriting and the Anti-Political Prejudice addresses a timely, even urgent question: what has happened to the tradition of socially engaged playwriting in the United States since its two high-water marks in the twentieth century? Something has changed - perhaps irrevocably - in the way our culture makes room for political debate on its stages, in the way playwrights theatricalize political life, embody committed thought and action, and measure the space between utopian ideals and harsher realities. - Marc Robinson, author of The American Play: 1787-2000

Nelson Pressley recently received his PhD from the University of Maryland.