list of illustrations

notes on contributors

preface

acknowledgments

chronology

stephanieroach

part i: pioneers

1comedies by early american women

amelia howe kritzer

2women writing melodrama

sarah j. blackstone

3realism and feminism in the progressive era

patricia r. schroeder

part 2: inheritors

4susan glaspell and modernism

veronica makowsky

the expressionist moment: sophie treadwell

jerry dickey

feminism and the marketplace: the career of rachel crothers

brenda murphy

.7the harlem renaissance and the new negro movement

judith l. stephens

8lillian hellman: feminism, formalism, and politics

thomas p. adler

9from harlem to broadway: african american women playwrights at mid-century

margaret b. wilkerson

part 3: new feminists

10feminist theory and contemporary drama

janet brown

11feminist theatre of the seventies in the united states

helene keyssar

12contemporary playwrights/traditional forms

laurin porter

13wendy wasserstein: a feminist voice from the seventies to the present

jan balakian

part 4: further reading

14contemporary american women playwrights: a brief survey ofselected scholarship

christy gavin

15discovering and recovering african american women playwrights writing before 1930

christine r. gray

works cited

index