Presents an account of changes in the American (primarily New York) theater over the last two decades. Cohn surveys the broad spectrum from highly successful commercial practitioners Neil Simon and Sam Shepard to radical-fringe experimentalists Julian Beck (of Living Theater fame) and J. C. Van Itallie. She summarizes the achievements of most of the other notable playwrights of the period, including the already fading Rabe and Mamet, black authors Baraka and Bullins and homosexual dramatists Duberman and Patrick.