Contextualizing New Plays: Studies in Theatre Concepts, Forms, and Styles uses short, original plays as catalysts for discussing basic theatrical concepts, dramatic forms and genres, styles of production, thematic concerns, critical theory, and dramatic criticism. This book uses these short form plays as instructional tools with the pedagogical underpinnings needed to prepare students to successfully interact with full-length scripts.

Each chapter introduces a playwright and his or her play, then discusses the particular form and style exemplified. After exploring this content, students are referred to longer plays of similar form and style, and participate in both individual and group exercises and activities that enable them to apply specific dramatic knowledge and skills including collective creation, image-tracking, magical realism, absurdism, and group playwriting.

Contextualizing New Plays provides a welcome alternative to anthologies of full-length plays or working with numerous separate scripts. Developed for courses in theatre history, play analysis, and introduction to the theatre, it is equally suited to serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplemental reader.

Scott R. Irelan serves as associate dean of the College of Fine Arts at Western Michigan University. He is the author (with Anne Fletcher) of Experiencing Theatreand The Process of Dramaturgy. He also edited Enacting Nationhood: Identity, Ideology and Theatre, 1855-99.

Anne Fletcher is professor of theatre at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale where she teaches dramaturgy and theatre history. She is the author of Rediscovering Mordecai Gorelik: Scene Design and the American Theatre and Modern American Drama: Playwriting in the 1930s.