Dramaturgy: Plays

Anyone with an academic, professional, amateur, or recreational interest in the theatre is likely to want to look up details of particular plays sometimes - perhaps to check on the author, or on when they were first performed, or perhaps to see how many characters they have, and whether or notthey would be suitable for their theatre company or drama group to perform. The Oxford Dictionary of Plays provides essential information on the 1000 best-known, best-loved, and most important plays in world theatre. Each entry includes details of title, author, date of composition, date of first performance, genre, setting, and the composition of the cast, and more. Asynopsis of the plot and a brief commentary, perhaps on the context of the play, or the reasons for its enduring popularity, follow. Around 80 of the most significant plays - from The Oresteia to Waiting for Godot - are dealt with in more detail. Genres covered include: burlesque, comedy, farce,historical drama, kabuki, masque, melodrama, morality play, mystery play, No, romantic comedy, tragicomedy, satire, and tragedy. An index of characters enables the reader to locate favourite characters, and trace the trajectory of major historical and legendary characters - such as Iphigenia - through world drama, including in plays that do not have entries in the Dictionary. An index of playwrights, with dates, allows thereader to find all the plays included by a particular author.

The new 4th edition, including some 1500 entries, brings coverage up through the 1984-85 theatrical season and includes not only those new plays considered best by traditional authorities, but also commercial successes, plays most popular with amateur theater groups, and plays produced most often by 3000 International Thespian Society_affiliated high schools. Salem has added almost 100 modern British and American plays that rightfully belong in the 'Best' category.

This supplement to the revised and expanded edition of Index to Plays in Periodicals (1979) continues the indexing of plays in the periodicals covered in the 1979 volume that still publish plays. It also indexes several journals for the first time. The book, covering 4,605 plays indexed in 104 periodicals from 1977 through 1987, features all types of plays in a variety of languages, from works for children to Broadway hits, classics, and "closet" dramas. The features of the previous index have been retained in this supplement. The book is arranged in two parts: the author index containing the main entry with all information necessary to locate the play, and the title index.