"Volume four (1969-2000) of the distinguished 'American theatre : a chronicle of comedy and drama' series offers a thorough, candid, and fascinating look at the theatre in New York during the last three decades of the twentieth century. Broadway, Off Broadway, and Off Off Broadway are all covered in this day-by-day, season-by-season chronicle of the plays audiences watched, discussed, and remembered during a turbulent era in the theatre in America. A Broadway turned more and more to musicals and foreign works, Off Broadway grew and revealed startling new playwrights, actors, directors, and designers. Then in the 1970s, the new venue of Off Off Broadway brought people to the theatre who had never seen it before. Theatre became a voice for their special interests and concerns in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the breakout of AIDS. From Neil Simon to Joseph Papp to Sam Shepard to Charles Ludlam to August Wilson, the artists of the late twentieth century carved a new form of theatre. This is the story of them, their plays, and their audiences"--Book jacket.