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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Four Contemporary American Playwrights: Exploring Identity

Four Contemporary American Playwrights: Exploring Identity

Bigsby, Christopher

Hardcover

Literary CriticismTheater HistoryPlaywriting

ISBN10: 1350538809
ISBN13: 9781350538801
Publisher: Methuen Drama
Published: Nov 13 2025
Pages: 208
Weight: 1.02
Height: 0.50 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
The fourth in a series of books exploring the careers of 28 contemporary American playwrights, this book covers the work of four male writers, Lucas Hnath, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Stephen Karam and Tarell Alvin McCraney.

The dramatic strategies of these award-winning playwrights range widely in styles and approach. Christopher Bigsby interweaves critical analysis of their work with biographical information, contemporary responses and the writers' own comments, drawn from interviews.

At a time when the question of identity is central in America, at both a personal and national level, how far do these playwrights see this as central or incidental to their work? Bigsby argues that Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' work often asks to what extent race is a construct, in work including neighbors, An Octoroonand Appropriate, while stepping away from race in Everybody.Tarell Alvin McCraney, conscious that being labelled as gay or black can influence the reception of his work, nonetheless embraces both in The Brothers Size, Choir Boy, Wig Outandhis Oscar-winning film Moonlight.

If Stephen Karam, from a Lebanese-American family, engages with gay characters in Speech and Debateand The Humans, this book posits that he is also interested in suffering, something of which he has personal experience. Finally, Lucas Hnath approaches identity in another way, appropriating the lives of real characters, historical and contemporary, inhabiting and deconstructing them.

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