Staging the Nation

In a selection which aims to highlight some of the more prominent stage successes on the American stage over more than a century of its history,STAGING THE NATION represents examples of dramas ranging from the earliest native comedy to be staged professionally in 1787 to the emergence of American realism with some semblance of a social consciousness at the turn of the nineteenth century.It includes comedies of manner,social comedy,burlesque,melodramas(the dominant serious form of the period),and an early example of American realis subtitled a domestic comedy but with serious overtones.This particular collection clearly illustrates the evolution of a distinctive native theatre that parallels the growth of the America nation.