From the Other Side of the Century II: A New American Drama 1960-1995

Like the 1,200-page volume of American poetry before it, From The Other Side of the Century II explores literature of the last quarter century, this time American dramatic writing, making available important theater texts for reading and teaching.

Among the playwrights included in this major collection are Edward Albee, Arnold Weinstein, Jack Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Tennessee Williams, Ed Bullins, Rosalyn Drexler, John Guare, Ronald Tavel, Lee Breuer, Richard Foreman, Sam Shepard, Adrienne Kennedy, Richard Nelson, Jeffrey M. Jones, John O. Keefe, Charles Ludlam, OyamO, Craig Lucas, Pedro Pietri, Eric Overmyer, Constance Congdon, Maria Irene Fornes, Holoy Hughes, Len Jenkin, Erik Ehn, Charles L. Mee, Jr., Richard Caliban, Suzan-Lori Parks, John Steppling, Tina Howe, Lynn Alvarez, David Greenspan, Murray Mednick, Mac Wellman, Kier Peters, Naomi Iizuka, and Tony Kushner.

In his introduction Marc Robinson observes that "If nothing else, this anthology should put to bed some tired words. 'Experimental, ' 'alternative, ' 'avant-garde': ...Perhaps such terms meant something in the early days of American theater, when writers eager for success had to buckle under a dominant style. Then the naysayers were a tiny, if resilient bunch. But now, after three generations of artists challenging assumptions about what constitutes a good play, the modes of innovation are too various to be summed up in a phrase or too energetic to be confined to the culture's margins. The alternative itself has become a tradition."

From the park bench of Albee's "The Zoo Story" of 1960 to the cemetery on Martha's Vineyard, where friends have gathered in Toy Kushner's play to bury illegally their playwright associate, the plays of this volume reveal the life and death, the genius and absurdity, the towering power and silly fears of the American people through a vibrant and poetic dramatic expression oer the last fort years. This important anthology reveals similarities and dissimilaritites between the past and present, enough to fill a lifetime of theater going.