What’s New?
- Biographies: Jamaica Kincaid, Marilyn Nelson, Clifford Ashley, Sylvia Earle, and Phillis Wheatley
- Audio: Harriet Beecher Stowe's The Pearl of Orr’s Island
- Video: Derek Walcott reads "Sea Grapes"
- Featured Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Tag Archives: Plays
Wouk, Herman
by Laurence W. Mazzeno (2000) WOUK, HERMAN (1915-2019). Herman Wouk, author of the best-selling sea novel The Caine Mutiny (1951) and other works about the navy in World War II, was born in New York City, eldest son of Russian Jewish Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Fiction, Multimedia/Multimodal, Navy/Coast Guard, Pacific Ocean, Plays, War
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Wilson, August
by Sarah Dohan (2016) WILSON, AUGUST (1945-2005). August Wilson, a prominent American playwright, was born Frederick August Kittel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 27, 1945 to Frederick Kittel, a German baker, and Daisy Wilson Kittel, an African American cleaning woman. Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Atlantic Ocean, audio, Middle Passage and Enslavement, Plays, Race/Ethnicity and the Sea, video
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Williams, Tennessee
by Felicia Hardison Londre (2000) WILLIAMS, TENNESSEE [THOMAS LANIER] (1911-1983). Winner of four New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards and two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays, Tennessee Williams is most identified with the American South. He was born in Mississippi Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Atlantic Ocean, Gender/Sexuality and the Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Multimedia/Multimodal, Pacific Islands, Passenger Travel, Plays, Recreation
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Walcott, Derek
by Jill B. Gidmark (2000) WALCOTT, DEREK [ALTON] (1930-2017). Winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in literature, Derek Walcott identifies in his life and work two primary inspirations: the Caribbean Sea and his mixed-race heritage. Born and raised in the harbor Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, Fishing, Plays, Poetry, Race/Ethnicity and the Sea, Science/Nature, video, Whaling/Sealing
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Vidal, Gore
by Donald Yannella (2000) VIDAL, GORE [EUGENE LUTHER] (1925-2012). Gore Vidal was born in West Point, New York, attended Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and served in the army during World War II. A novelist, playwright, and essayist, he Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Fiction, Nonfiction, Pacific Ocean, Plays
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Rowson, Susanna H.
by Philip Barnard (2000) ROWSON, SUSANNA H[ASWELL]. (1762-1824). Born in Portsmouth, England, Susanna H. Rowson became an actress, educator, prolific writer in several genres, and notably the author of Charlotte Temple (1791), America’s first best-selling novel. Rowson’s father, William Haswell, was Continue reading text links
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Tagged 18th Century, 19th Century, Atlantic Ocean, Fiction, Merchant Marine, Multimedia/Multimodal, Passenger Travel, Plays
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Rice, Elmer
by Brian T. Carney (2000) RICE, ELMER (1892-1967). Born Elmer Reizenstein, the playwright Elmer Rice is best known for his realistic and expressionistic dramas of urban life. However, he turned to the sea for two of his plays. Between Two Worlds Continue reading text links
O’Neill, Eugene
by Margaret Loftus Ranald (2000) O’NEILL, EUGENE [GLADSTONE] (1888-1953). Eugene O’Neill, America’s preeminent playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize (1936) and four Pulitzer Prizes (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957), was born in the Barrett Hotel, New York City, son of the actor Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, audio, Class/Labor and the Sea, Merchant Marine, Plays, War, Whaling/Sealing, Women Protagonists
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Merwin, Samuel
by Robert Beasecker (2000) MERWIN, SAMUEL (1874-1936). Born in Evanston, Illinois, Samuel Merwin attended Northwestern University but did not graduate. His literary career began with the publication of two popularly acclaimed novels, The Short Line War (1899) and Calumet “K” (1901), Continue reading text links
McNally, Terrence
by David R. Pellegrini (1999) McNALLY, TERRENCE (1938-2020). Terrence McNally’s seriocomic dramas have won him acclaim as one of the most prolific playwrights of the 1990s, one particularly interested in the representation of gay men. Along with other dramatists who Continue reading text links
Jewitt, John Rodgers
by Mary Malloy (2000) JEWITT, JOHN RODGERS (1783-1821). An Englishman who served aboard the American merchant vessel Boston, John Jewitt became famous as a “captive” of the Indians of Nootka Sound, off the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, when he Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, Merchant Marine, Nonfiction, Plays
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Howells, William Dean
by Udo Nattermann (2000) HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN (1837-1920). A native of Ohio, William Dean Howells began to work in his father’s printing shop at age nine. A self-taught student of languages and literature, he early entered a career in journalism. After Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, 20th Century, Exploration, Fiction, Journalism, Plays, Poetry
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Howe, Tina
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) HOWE, TINA (1937- ). Obie-award-winning playwright Tina Howe often employs sea imagery as metaphoric devices in her plays. Born in Boston and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, Howe began to have her works professionally produced in Continue reading text links
Herne, James A.
by Attilio Favorini (2000) HERNE, JAMES A[HERN]. (1839-1901). James A. Herne was an actor, manager, and playwright whose early reputation as a successful melodramatist was established on the basis of his collaborations with playwright/producer/director David Belasco. Later in his career, however, Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, Coastal Life, Plays, Whaling/Sealing
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de Hartog, Jan
by James F. Millinger (2000) DE HARTOG, JAN (1914-2002). Born in Holland, Jan de Hartog ran off to sea when he was ten years old. Six years later he enrolled in Amsterdam Naval College and became a junior mate in Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Fiction, Maritime History, Plays, Short Story, War
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Green, Paul
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) GREEN, PAUL [ELIOT] (1894-1981). A prolific playwright and poet whose literary career spanned several decades and genres, Paul Green is remembered chiefly for his dramatizations of southern folklore and customs and the plight of the Continue reading text links
Glaspell, Susan
by Attilio Favorini (2000) GLASPELL, SUSAN [KEATING] (1876-1948). Associated with the Provincetown Players, a group that included Eugene O’Neill, Jig Cook, and Floyd Dell in the early years of their illustrious collaboration (1916- 1922), Susan Glaspell is best known for Continue reading text links
Ferrini, Vincent
by Joseph Flibbert (2000) FERRINI, VINCENT (1913-2007). Vincent Ferrini was born into a blue-collar, immigrant family struggling to earn a living in the shoe factories of Lynn, Massachusetts. His first volume of poems, No Smoke (1941), records the depression-era deprivations Continue reading text links
Dunlap, William
by Robert Beasecker (2000) DUNLAP, WILLIAM (1766-1839). William Dunlap, born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, showed considerable artistic aptitude at an early age and in 1784 was sent to England to study painting under Benjamin West. There, however, he became Continue reading text links
Doolittle, Hilda
by Gregg Allen Walker (2000) D[OOLITTLE]., H[ILDA]. (1886-1961). H. D., a poet, novelist, dramatist, and translator whose works often incorporate sea imagery, was born in Pennsylvania. Childhood visits to the seacoasts of Rhode Island and Maine first inspired H. D., Continue reading text links
Davis, Richard Harding
by Linda Ledford-Miller (2000) DAVIS, RICHARD HARDING (1864-1916). Born in Philadelphia, Richard Harding Davis was the first child born to the journalist L. Clarke Davis and the fiction writer Rebecca Harding Davis. He soon followed in his parents’ footsteps as a Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, Caribbean, Journalism, Passenger Travel, Plays, Short Story, War
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Coxe, Louis O.
by Robert Shenk (2000) COXE, LOUIS O[SBORNE]. (1918-1993). Louis O. Coxe was a student in Allen Tate’s Creative Arts program at Princeton when Pearl Harbor occurred. Having grown up in Salem, Massachusetts, Coxe joined the navy. He came to regard Continue reading text links
Bradbury, Ray
by Jonathan R. Eller (2000) BRADBURY, RAY [DOUGLAS] (1920-2012). Ray Bradbury, prolific author of twenty story collections and eight novels evolving out of more than 340 published short stories, was born in Waukegan, Illinois. He has lived in Los Angeles Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Children's Writing, Fiction, Plays, Science Fiction, Short Story
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Behrman, S. N.
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) BEHRMAN, S[AMUEL]. N[ATHANIEL]. (1893-1973). The prolific playwright S. N. Behrman was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, into dire poverty; his entry into professional theatre was rapid, and by the mid-1920s he was already a notable literary Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Caribbean, Island Life, Multimedia/Multimodal, Plays
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Albee, Edward
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) ALBEE, EDWARD (1928-2016). A leading contemporary playwright, Edward Albee made his early reputation writing spare, psychological dramas, of which his most acclaimed and widely known remains Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (first perf. 1962; pub. Continue reading text links
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Tagged 21st Century, Atlantic Ocean, Plays, Science Fiction
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Aiken, Conrad
by John T. Shawcross (2000) [AIKEN, CONRAD POTTER], “SAMUEL JEAKE JR.” (1889-1973). A friend and contemporary of T. S. Eliot, Conrad Aiken divided his time between England and the United States before settling in Massachusetts in 1947. He used the Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Fiction, Nonfiction, Plays, Poetry, Short Story
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