American Theatre (1997)

American theatre is traditionally dated from the arrival of Lewis Hallam's English troupe in Williamsburg in 1752. After the end of the Revolutionary War, the Republic witnessed a slow expansion of the dramatic arts. Theatres were built in Charleston, Philadelphia, Newport, New York, and Boston.

Theatre became a more spread part of American life during the early 19^th century and the first decades were golden years for theatre. In the second half of the 19^th century, theatre became both more diverse and more specialized. Audiences could choose between legitimate theatre, ballet, burlesque, and opera. In the second half of the 19^th century, vaudeville emerged. Its fast-paced collage of music, comedy, dance, novelty, and skits appealed to a large audience.

Today many thousands of performances of old and new plays are presented annually. The centre of the U.S. theatrical world is in a section of New York City on and near Broadway. In New York City alone there are about 50 new professional productions a season. In addition, many performances by professionals and semi-professionals are given in clubs, universities and drama schools. America's most important playwrights are considered to be Eugene O'Neill, Maxwell Anderson, Thornton Wilder and William Saroyan. Of the younger dramatists Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller are the most prominent.

Eugene O'Neill is generally considered America's greatest playwright. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, and he was the only dramatist to win the Pulitzer Prize in drama four times. His best known plays "Anna Christie" and "Long Day's Journey into Night", a semiautobiographical tragedy, are always of great success on the stage.

The musical stage of the 20^th century proved to be the country's most popular theatrical export. Music had accompanied theatricals since colonial days. But only in 1886 American musical was born with the appearance of "The Black Crook". American musicals, where song, dance and spectacle were introduced into an existing melodrama, contributed greatly to theatre art. "The West Side Story" created a furore on American stage in 1957 and is still being produced in American theatres. Frank Sinatra, a famous American singer and film actor starred in several films and musicals. His distinctive style of singing made him famous as a performer all over the world.

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