American Dramatists in the 21st Century: Opening Doors

In American Dramatists in the 21st Century: Opening Doors, Christopher Bigsby examines the careers of seven award-winning playwrights: David Adjmi, Julia Cho, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Will Eno, Martyna Majok, Dominique Morisseau and Anna Ziegler. In addition to covering all their plays, including several as yet unpublished, he notes their critical reception while drawing on their own commentary on their approach to writing and the business of developing a career.

The writers studied come from a diverse range of racial, religious and immigrant backgrounds. Five of the seven are women. Together, they open doors on a changing theatre and a changing America, as ever concerned with identity, both personal and national.

This is the third in a series of books which, together, have explored the work of twenty-four American playwrights who have emerged in the current century.

Christopher Bigsby is Emeritus Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK, as well as a novelist and a broadcaster. He has published over fifty books, among his more recent being Twenty-First Century American Playwrights (2017) and Staging America (Methuen Drama, 2019). He is also the author of a two-volume biography of Arthur Miller.