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The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights ed. by Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes, and Matthew C. Roudané (review)

The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights provides an extensive survey of twenty-five prominent American playwrights whose careers span the last fifty years. Editors Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Christopher Innes, and Matthew Roudané gather a company of established scholars from Europe and North America to contribute authoritative essays on their subjects. Each essay includes a biographical introduction to the playwright, a summary and analysis of four to five of the playwright’s major plays, a summary of the playwright’s overall work, and a selected bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Although the guide does not contain any play texts, it remains useful for undergraduate theatre and English courses, as well as a source for reference material for theatre generalists and practitioners. Readers might employ this guide as an introduction to a playwright’s career and oeuvre, as supplemental reading to one of the playwright’s plays, or as a starting point for further research.