This is the 50th title in Scarecrow's series of Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts, and the third in the sub series of Historical Dictionaries of American Theater. The first volume of the latter, covering the beginnings of American theatre to circa 1880 has yet to be published, while the second, covering 1880‐1930, has recently appeared (Fisher and Londré, 2008) (incidentally, although the spelling “theater” is used for these titles, the spelling “theatre” is used within this book).
After the usual preliminaries, Volume 1 commences with a 40‐page detailed chronology, the last entry of which is for 7 October 2010, when “James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave win acclaim in a revival of Alfred Uhry's play, Driving Miss Daisy”. This is followed by the author's introduction giving a sixteen‐page historical background noting inter alia the influence of Broadway and increased political activism. Compiler James Fisher is Head and Professor of Theater at the University of North Carolina. He comments how hard it was to be selective, even with the focus restricted to “legitimate theatre” and leaving aside musical and variety entertainments.
The dictionary has over 1,700 entries, including playwrights, actors, directors, producers, designers, critics, agents, technical developments, genres, companies, and unions. There are entries on all kinds of theatre, individual plays, and major themes. Play entries include brief plot summaries, critical responses, leading actors and noted revivals. In addition to entries for specific topics, there are several overview entries on broad topics such as African‐American theatre, gay and lesbian drama, dramatic theatre, acting/actors, critics/criticism, and Ibsen on the US stage. Cross‐referencing is done well, even to the extent of referring to the previous volume in the series for topics and people that cross the date divide such as Eugene O'Neill.
On comprehensiveness, Fisher remarks that “The vastness and diversity of American theatre between 1930 and 2010 may be ascertained in the volume's bibliography, which is divided into sub‐categories”. Apart from calculating that the bibliography extends to 44 pages, I have to take this on trust since only Volume 1 of this work was offered for review. I have, though, been mightily impressed with the bibliographies in other historical dictionaries reviewed recently, so assume this one will follow form. There is, as usual with this publisher, no listing of topics by category and no index. The latter is partly alleviated by excellent cross‐referencing, but I do wish Scarecrow Press would provide a subject approach to the 1,700‐plus entries.
The book is smartly bound with a laminated hard cover and the layout clearly presented with good sized type. It is pleasing to see the physical improvement of these historical dictionaries from Scarecrow over the years, though the pages are still rather yellow. For students of contemporary American drama, this book will be an excellent source of reference.
