This collection contains in-depth original and lively interviews with fifteen of America’s leading contemporary playwrights––Edward Albee, Robert Anderson, Alice Childress, John Guare, A. R. Gurney, Beth Henley, Henry David Hwang, Larry L. King, Jerome Lawrence, Terrence McNally, Ntozake Shange, Neil Simon, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Wendy Wasserstein, and Lanford Wilson. Taken together, the careers of these dramatists span the entire history of the last fifty years of American theater. The writers talk freely about how they shape a play, how they participate in the production process, and how they feel about film adaptations of their work. The playwrights also dissect the changes that have occurred in the American theater since the Second World War, such as the increased costs of production and tickets, the shift in focus and style of theater critics, the absence of original plays on Broadway, and the growth of regional, off-Broadway, and off-off Broadway theater. The Playwright’s  Art includes an excellent, comprehensive, historical overview of contemporary American drama by Jackson Bryer.