Although acting was the first career of Harold Pinter, his stage work was abruptly eclipsed by his prodigious writing talent. Thematically influenced by Kafka and Beckett, the plays of this contemporary master of the comic absurd offer uneasy glimpses into existential struggles for survival and ident

Post-war theater, Repetitive, Spare, Theater of the absurd

Born in New York's Harlem in 1915, Arthur Miller was not a good student. After a lackluster high school career, he was ready to join his father's clothing business when he read Dostoyevsky's "Brothers Karamazov." Suddenly, the world changed -- Miller decided to dedicate his life to reading and writin

Empty, Political, Post-war theater, Tragic

Dramatist Lorraine Hansberry broke social conventions by depicting black experiences of white prejudice. She also broke Broadway records by being both the youngest person and the first African American to win the Best Play award from the New York Drama Critics' Circle. Before that moment, black playw

African american fiction, African american theater, Political, Queer literature, Social protest, Tense

Spalding Gray splashed into the national consciousness with the epic monologue-cum-performance piece "Swimming to Cambodia" (1985), a distinctive solo show that has been on the road in some incarnation for well-nigh 20 years. He cut his teeth on Postmodern performance theory with SoHo's experimental

Agitated, Epic, Neurotic, Solo performance