In the 1910s the American theater, long dominated by melodramas, dictatorial producers (most of whom were artless magnates), and an audience more drawn by stars-preferably Britishthan good scripts, was finally ready to establish its own identity. The cha...

In the 1910s the American theatre, long dominated by melodramas, dictatorial producers (most of whom were artless magnates), and an audience more drawn by stars--preferably British--than good scripts, was finally ready to establish its own identity. The...

"I want to be an artist or nothing," wrote aspiring playwright Eugene O'Neill at the age of twenty-five. He pursued his goal relentlessly, and when he died forty years later he had written more than fifty plays, won the Nobel and several Pulitzer prizes,...