14 - Contemporary American women playwrights

Summary

During the 1960s and 1970s, the women’s movement and experimental theatre were vital forces in providing women a public space to challenge patriarchal values and to dramatize the rare, unseen inner life of woman. Beginning in the late 1970s, as the two major bibliographical works on women dramatists and theatre, Steadman’s Dramatic Re-Visions: An Annotated Bibliography of Feminism and Theatre 1972-1988, and my own American Women Playwrights, 1964-1989 will attest, scholars began responding to women’s plays - uncovering neglected writers, discovering new ones, and developing theories to evaluate playwrights and performance.

Reclaiming the presence of women playwrights

Four notable volumes document the formation of the canon of women playwrights and feminist theatre: Chinoy and Jenkins’ sourcebook, Women in American Theatre; Notable Women in the American Theatre: A Biographical Dictionary; Betsko and Koenig’s landmark Interviews with Contemporary Women Playwrights; and, especially welcome, Burke’s American Feminist Playwrights: A Critical History, which places women playwrights within a critical and historical context.