The Great American Playwrights on the Screen: A Critical Guide to TV, Video and DVD FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The Great American Playwrights on the Screen is a complete, up-to-date record of movie and television productions of classic and contemporary works by America's greatest playwrights. Rich in historical value and detail, this reference book not only tracks Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winners, but also unearths unheralded treasures and forgotten performances by great actors and the great directors they served. Organized in an easy-to-use A-Z format, it features more than 200 playwrights - including Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman, Eugene O'Neill, Neil Simon, Wendy Wasserstein, and Tennessee Williams - and compares and contrasts the adapted versions of their works, including colorful reviews by prominent critics of TV and film (beginning with those of the silent era)." The profound expansion of television into American homes in the 1950s brought a flood of adapted plays to the small screen and resulted in the rebirth of the careers of many significant playwrights. The Great American Playwrights on the Screen provides fans with a video and DVD guide to the adapted works of the playwrights and shows which versions are available for home viewing and in what media (VHS and DVD). It resurrects the memory of television productions of plays at a critical time, when many of them - including Emmy winners and nominees - are deteriorating in vaults.
SYNOPSIS
Featuring some 200 American playwrights—from Arthur Miller and Lillian Hellman, to Wendy Wasserstein and Tennessee Williams—this reference provides fans, academics, drama students, and directors with a video and DVD guide to classic and contemporary plays that have been adapted for movies and television. Roberts, a former film critic, gives brief biographies of the playwrights and describes each adapted work in two to three sentences. The listings, which are rated with a five-star system, include length of film, indication of color or black and white, personnel, and reviews from magazines such as The New Yorker and The Saturday Review dating back to the silent era. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Employing a user-friendly, A-to-Z format arranged by author, Roberts, a writer, editor, and critic, compiles a comprehensive, up-to-date listing of English-language movie and television productions of classic and contemporary works by more than 200 of America's greatest playwrights, including Tennessee Williams, Wendy Wasserstein, Lillian Hellman, and Horton Foote. Only productions adapted from the stage are included, from the well known (Foote's The Trip to Bountiful) to the forgotten (William Vaughn Moody's The Great Divide); TV dramas that began as such are excluded. Each entry includes the author's name and a brief biography, followed by each play listed alphabetically. In turn, Roberts features production date and company, quality rating, primary cast, available media format, brief plot synopsis, and production notes. Many entries also include commentary by drama/film critics and other writers from Variety, The New Yorker, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. One excellent feature is the inclusion of all productions of a work-the four versions of Inherit the Wind, for example. The writing is uniformly excellent, and users will find this a handy companion to American theater history. Highly recommended for all theater and film collections to complement John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh's The Encyclopedia of Stage Plays into Film, which is international in scope.-Anthony J. Adam, Prairie View A&M Univ., TX Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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