From Library Journal
The continuing success of the one-act play in American theaters is evidenced by these two books, which include a startling array of styles?examples of realism, fantasy, farce, tragedy, and even symposium plays are presented. Fourteen eclectic pieces, half of which are by major playwrights, comprise the latest volume in Applause's long-running annual celebration of the form. The most unusual work is a recently rediscovered text by Thornton Wilder, The Wreck of the 5:25, anthologized here for the first time. This play alone casts into clear relief the adventurous nature of contemporary playwrights (though the sparsity of major women playwrights here is notable). The Humana Festival, held at the Actors' Theatre in Louisville, has long been a venue for new plays. This fat collection contains the cream of two decades' worth of work. As fewer major playwrights are represented, these plays are more risky, more adventurous, and much more political. By and large, they test the limits of the form more rigorously than those found in the Applause collection. Both texts provide a wealth of source material for theaters, actors, and academic training programs. Both are recommended for academic and larger public libraries.?Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., Mass.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Revivals and British imports dominate Broadway; indeed, both on and off that street, opportunities for new American playwrights are at a 200-year low, leaving the annual Humana Festival of New American Playwrights in Louisville as one of the few places where new work is performed. Many important playwrights of the current generation had their big breaks at Humana, and the authors of these 20 one-acts, collected to commemorate Humana's twentieth anniversary, constitute a roster of the most prominent names from the American theater's last two decades. Better, there are so many fine one-acts here--such as Jane Anderson's hilarious, pointed satire of phobic yuppies, Tough Choices for the New Century; Howard Korder's dark comedy about aimless adolescents, Fun; and Donald Margulies' moving portrait of a day in the life of a beleaguered female doctor, July 7, 1994that you hardly notice the absence of the very biggest names of festivals past: Beth Henley, Marsha Norman, Jane Martin, Tony Kushner. Jack Helbig
Review
For performers, producers, collectors and students, this anthology is a virtual goldmine. A valuable addition to drama department reference collections. -- The Midwest Book Review, October 1996
About the Author
Michael Bigelow Dixon has served as literary manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville throughout the second decade of the Humana Festival of New American Plays. He's also held positions as literary manager at the Alley Theatre and literary associate at South Coast Repertory. He has been a Theatre Management Fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts, and has taught at North Carolina Central University, UC-Riverside, Rice University, and Action Theatre in Singapore. He has co-edited ten volumes of plays and criticism, and co-written more than twenty plays, fifteen of which are published. He is now the associate artistic director at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. Michele Volansky is the assistant literary manager and dramaturg at Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she works on the annual Humana Festival of New American Plays and the Classics in Context Festival.
