Fully updated and expanded, this encyclopedic volume is packed with information about the American theatre from its beginnings to the present day. In addition to comprehensive coverage of America's leading actors, playwrights, directors, songwriters, playhouses, and dramatic movements, there are entries on the people and productions from overseas that have helped shape the US stage tradition, most notably Shakespeare, Beckett, and Pinter. There are also summaries of hundreds of celebrated plays as diverse as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cats, The Iceman Cometh, Arsenic and Old Lace, My Fair Lady, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Ranging from Clifford Odets and Lillian Hellman to George Gershwin and Neil Simon, from Florenz Ziegfeld and Mae West to Lee Strasberg and Jessica Tandy, this is the standard one-volume reference for everyone who loves the American stage.