Synopsis

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 then twenty plays, fifteen of which are published. He is now the associate artistic director at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Library Journal

Smith and Kraus, the drama student's best friend in the publishing world, once again mines the indefatigably rich and protean dramatic vein of the Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival. The latest jewel in the "Contemporary Playwrights and Collections" series is this three-volume collection of 90 exemplary ten-minute plays, derived from Humana's 20-year-old National Ten-Minute Play Contest and selected by lead editor Dixon, who was an associate artistic director and literary manager at ATL for 16 years. What began as a quirky exercise in Polaroid playwrighting has evolved into a meaningful format, no less dramatically complete or serious for its time constraint. Nor is this form relegated only to unknown innovators, as attested by the contributions of such noted playwrights as Jane Martin, David Henry Hwang, Tina Howe, William Mastrosimone, Jon Jory, David Ives, and Craig Lucas. Arranged by gender groupings (plays for women, plays for men, plays for combinations, etc.), these volumes are particularly suited to acting students whose needs for relevant, contemporary, and age-appropriate scenic material is insatiable. This entire moderately priced series should be scarfed up by all libraries devoting collection attention to the needs of actors. Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.