Theater

Please expand this section. Some suggested sources are given hereafter. More information might be found in a section of the talk page. (April 2012)

Main article: Theater in the United States

Theater of the United States is based in the Western tradition and did not take on a unique dramatic identity until the emergence of Eugene O'Neil in the early twentieth century, now considered by many to be the father of American drama. O'Neil is a four time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the only American playwright to win the Nobel Prize for literature. After Eugene O'Neil, American drama came of age and flourished with the likes of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, William Inge, and Clifford Odets during the first half of the twentieth century. After this furtile period, American theater broke new ground, artistically, with the absurdist forms of Edward Albee in the 1960s. Social commentary has also been a preoccupation of American theater, often addressing issues not discussed in the mainstream. Writers such as Lorraine Hansbury, August Wilson, David Mamet and Tony Kushner have all won Pulitzer Prizes for their polemical plays on American society. The United States is also the home and largest exporter of modern musical theater, producing such musical talents as Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, George and Ira Gershwin, Kander and Ebb, and Stephen Sondheim. Broadway is one of the largest theater communities in the world and is the epicenter of American commercial theater.