Maxwell Anderson was among the generation of playwrights who changed the world's perception of American drama. Before World War I the usual impression in this country and abroad was that important and exciting theatrical centers were all in Europe, but after the war that view faded, and by the end of the 1920s New York City had become the Western world's theatrical Mecca. America's new prestige as a nation following the war encouraged that shift of attention, but its immediate cause was a convergence of developments in the American theatre itself. In the years just before the war New York City began to attract talented young performers, stage designers, and directors. Then by the early 1920s a new and sizable audience showed that it would support the contemporary plays. With an audience and theatre artists in place, the era needed only some playwrights to look like a renaissance...