African American Literature is a composite of many different life stories and experiences African Americans have had to endure throughout a lifetime. ... All of these novelists, playwrights and poets have created a historical journey in their literature with all the trials, tribulations, discriminations, murders, accomplishments and pride of African Americans throughout their life whether it was the ways of our heritage or dealing with inferiority, this literature has enlightened all and brought back much of the history that African Americans wouldn't have any access to otherwise. ......

• Word Count: 2200
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Yellow-Faced Coolies and Exotic Geisha: The Portrayal of Asians in American Theatre and Their Reactions Since the inception of theatre, playwrights have used the stage to portray races different from their own, and from the majority of their audience. ... Portraying cultures they knew nothing about, many playwrights relied on stereotypes and stock character types that were widely used and accepted by the public. ... I also discuss how one well known Asian American playwright, David Henry Hwang (M. ... David Henry Hwang is a well known Asian-American playwright known for M. ... (Hwang, Rodgers...

• Word Count: 1571
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography

Odets wasn't recognized as a talented actor; however, he soon found his place in the world of theatre as a playwright. ... Awake and Sing came shortly after and helped establish Odets as a prominent playwright. ... Odets Success in Hollywood wasn't as astounding as most expected for the once promising playwright. ... Like many of the writers and playwrights of the 1950's Odets was investigated by Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953. Odets proclaimed that is depiction of the American working class came from deep sympathy and not from his brief ...

• Word Count: 635
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Jerome Lawrence, one of the authors of Inherit the Wind, is a playwright and director. ... He has worked as a visiting professor at Ohio State University and was a master playwright at New York University and Baylor University. ... He was the co-founder of the American Playwrights Theater. ...

• Word Count: 610
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

William Shakespeare and the Globe - William Shakespeare was perhaps the greatest English playwright ever. ... David Bevington, the current president of the Shakespeare Association of America, is widely recognized for his contributions to the field of Shakespearean scholarship. ... Seven years later Shakespeare was recognized as an actor, poet, and playwright, when a rival playwright, Robert Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow" in "A Groatsworth of Wit." ... This first reference suggests that Shakespeare had become both an actor and playwright. ...

• Word Count: 3856
• Approx Pages: 15
• Grade Level: High School

Eugene O'Neill was a playwright of unusual psychological depth. To the majority of critics, he is revered as the greatest dramatist that America ever produced. He is accepted as "the founder of American drama," and his continuing preeminence as such is remarkable. ... Before Eugene O"Neill, no playwright of importance had existed before him. He single-handedly created native drama in America by his influence and example. ...

• Word Count: 1320
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Contemporary playwrights are constantly writing about and commenting on current social and political issues. ... In this play, six playwrights have met late one night to get drunk and bury their dead friend, Ding, also a playwright, and wrapped in a sheet on the stage floor throughout the piece. There is also an eighth character in the play, the recorded voice of "the playwright-, giving the entire piece a Brecht-like quality. ... For example, there is the poor one, the intellectual feminist from London described as "cool, and beginning to sound British-, the angry bisexual who writes noth...

• Word Count: 1744
• Approx Pages: 7

There was a sense of fear amongst American people, and one of the few escapes from the real world was entertainment. ... However, in 1947 one of the most significant plays in American history opened on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. ... The overt sexual themes and innovative blend of realism and expressionism captivated audiences and became definitive characteristics of one of the great American playwrights, Tennessee Williams (Wilmeth 686). ... Today, it is commonplace that a director working with a playwright on the production of a play is a full collaborator in the work. ... Criti...

• Word Count: 2476
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In terms of culture the 1920s are often characterized as a period of American prosperity and optimism. ... America had now entered the decade of a black new world. The playwright and poet Langston Hughes wrote: "Harlem was like a great magnet for the Negro intellectual, pulling him from everywhere. ... Though having gained appreciation by the white American population, African-Americans were still not able to gain complete independence from the Whites. ... The success or failure of a literary work by an African-American novelist was definitely determined by white America's literary taste...

• Word Count: 2511
• Approx Pages: 10

If one's focus is primarily gender they may not be able to see the author's true purpose because they may make their own assumptions on the basis of the playwrights sex. ... As we embark on a new century playwrights continue to write about societal problems, familial roles, and gender discrimination. ... This reveals that a piece of literature, specifically a play, should be analyzed and interpreted on the basis of its content and not on the gender of the playwright. ... Many African Americans, such as Loraine Hansberry, have written great plays but the plays are not great becau...

• Word Count: 929
• Approx Pages: 4

The history of the modern world would not be complete without the story of the African American struggle for freedom in America. ... African Americans were forced to join forces with the enemy. ... This shows the pure abandonment that America displayed towards African Americans and their rights. ... While African Americans were not being protected, the media and playwrights only made it worse for their race. ... This was also the case with the playwright. ...

• Word Count: 1215
• Approx Pages: 5

Langston Hughes was born on February 1st, 1902 during an incredible period for African Americans in Harlem, New York. This phase in New York was called the Harlem Renaissance, which was a unique time were art inspired by African Americans flourished rapidly. ... This poem also expressed about a time of unfairness and discrimination in America against colored people. ... Aside from his essays and poems Langston was also a leader as a playwright and columnist. In the beginning of his playwright career Hughes wrote Mulatto, an amazing poem about a son and a father. ...

• Word Count: 664
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography

In the play ˜Death of a Salesman' by Arthur Miller, the playwright focuses on the theme of failure in a success oriented society. ... The play's theme demonstrates how ˜The American Dream' destroys people's lives by false promises. ... The American West, Alaska, and the African Jungle represent the potential to be successful to Biff and Willy. ... Willy realizes that his all-American football star turned into a lazy guy. ... This play made a lot of people question the greatness of the American Dream....

• Word Count: 658
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Welcome to America: Memories of "A Bintel Brief," by Barbara Lesser, opened the Steisand Festival of New Jewish Plays on June 3 at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center. By basing its content on letters from "A Bintel Brief," it imaginatively transports us back to the issues and history of Jewish immigrant life in America. More than two million Eastern European Jews settled in America from 1880 to 1925, and a key to their understanding American life was the Yiddish newspapers, the Forward being one of the most popular. ... Playwright Lesser faced a huge challenge to conve...

• Word Count: 298
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

In 1920 right after World War I, America changed dramatically, becoming an urban nation. ... After World War I, many Americans had money to spare and the time to enjoy it. ... By 1925, filmmaking had become the fourth largest industry in America. ... Eugene O"Neill, the first American playwright, granted their wish by winning a Nobel Prize for playwriting. American painters took care of an America ...

• Word Count: 738
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Miller and Mamet's Failure of the American Dream Arthur Miller and David Mamet are playwrights who are familiar with the struggle to achieve the American Dream. In "Death of a Salesman", Arthur Miller used the salesman Willy Loman as a symbol for the failure of the American dream. ... Through his pitiful and desperate lies and his failure in the pursuit of the American dream, Shelley Levene is the perfect example of a person who has been failed by the American system. ... Mamet and Miller both suggest that the American system teaches people to pursue success and despise failure. Th...

• Word Count: 590
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

His grandparents had come to America from Poland. ... He received much acclaim from All My Sons in 1947; Death of a Salesman (1949) - which won the Pulitzer Prize - and The Crucible (1952) confirmed him as a great playwright. ... Most of his work is set in the America of the day and portrays realistic characters and events. ... With no jobs and no prospects, it was not surprising that many people decided to try their luck in 'rich' America. ... His main ethics, were to ensure that the American citizens got there rewards for six years of fighting against the Germans. ...

• Word Count: 543
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Lorraine Hansberry The African-American playwright and painter, Lorraine Hansberry, was born in Chicago in 1930. ... This was the first drama by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. ... The Drinking Gourd was not actually produced because it was based on slavery in America, an issue too contentious for TV. ... Reading the biography of Lorraine Hansberry gave me insight of what it was like to be an African-American playwright who just happened to be a woman. ... The white people criticized her just because they believed that she will never be as good as a white playwrigh...

• Word Count: 923
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Simon received several Emmy Award nominations for his television writing and then decided to move on to the stage where he quickly established himself as America's most successful commercial playwright. ... Even having more smash hits than any other American playwright, critics continued to take pleasure in labeling him as a "writer of gags." ... During the course of his career, Simon has won three Tony Awards for Best Play (one being The Odd Couple), has had more plays adapted to film than any other American playwright and, in addition, has written nearly a dozen original screenplays ...

• Word Count: 1093
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography

On source had an ad that says, "The Red Menace a work in our schools-(ch.9 Hollitz p.231) To me that seems like the Americans are trying to let the public now that communist activities are going on in US schools. ... All the sources in the same chapter are some type of entertainment to Americans like songs, playwrights, movies, and ads (ch.9 Hollitz.) ... I believe this because in the movie Commander Ripper takes action and gives the orders to his men to drop the atomic bomb in Russia, but the only person that was authorized to give the okay for nuclear war was the President of the US of Ameri...

• Word Count: 519
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

In his play The Crucible, he uses the techniques of playwright, metaphor and historical repetition to reflect the mass hysteria of McCarthyism and the witch trials. ... In conclusion, in The Crucible, Arthur Miller used playwright, metaphor, and historical repetition to critique McCarthyism and to make sure society knew what the effects of hysteria could do. After the Cold War, many Americans didnt know what to believe or who to believe, and felt as though they werent safe in their own country, or even home. ...

• Word Count: 595
• Approx Pages: 2

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire- Tennesse Williams is known as one of the greatest American playwrights. Although his life was full of self - destructiveness, personal dramas and emotions he continued to write earning himself a place not only in American but the world literature as well. ... Lawrence and poet Hart Crane are known as the individuals who inspired the playwright. ... Williams' plays were exposed to critisism for their controversial content such as violence, obsession with sexuality, murder, rape, drugs which was often described as "perversi...

• Word Count: 1294
• Approx Pages: 5

He was a well-accomplished British playwright in an era of post-Victorianism and possibly his upbringing influenced his perception of Steinbeck's work. How could a well-educated British playwright possibly understand the deep social issues facing a downtrodden group of Americans thousands of miles away? ... The Grapes of Wrath in Isherwood's mind is a "milestone in American fiction, but [he does] not believe that it represents the height of the author's [Steinbeck's] powers (Bloom's 29)."" Even though the Isherwood review seems not to be satisfied with Steinbeck...

• Word Count: 669
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography

Langston Hughes was one of America's most influential writers. ... As well as being a highly recognized poet he was also a novelist, reporter, translator, playwright and a short story writer. The poems I choose are "I, too" and "Let America be America again". ... "Let America be America again" seems as though it could be looked at as an extension of "I, too". ... The poem begins with, "I, too sing America", an affirmation and reminder that African Americans are citizens of the United States and sing for the freedom which it stands for. ...

• Word Count: 710
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Who should be an American? ... A Chinese-American named Fu Chi Hao writes protesting the treatment of the Chinese in America. Fu Chi Hao was writing an article far an American magazine, and it is clear from the way he words his protest that he is writing for an American audience. He tries very hard to be as inoffensive to Americans as possible. ... He concludes that immigrants are more fit to survive in cities and industrial society than "Colonial stock,"" and terms this the "survival of the unfit."" (283) The Jewish playwright Israel Zangwill took the opposite view of the melting pot ideal...

• Word Count: 782
• Approx Pages: 3