Precursors of modern drama: Premodern theater and drama; Romanticism; Melodrama; Well made play; Problem play; "Other" first modern play?
Early modern drama, 1870-1918: Realism: influences on realism; Naturalism; First generation of realists, Ibsen Strindberg, Chekhov, and Stanislavsky; Alternative to realism and naturalism
Late modern drama, 1920-63: Aftermath of World War I; Other "isms"; Popular culture; Epic theatre; Second generation of realists; Theater of the absurd
Contemporary and postmodern drama, 1964-the present: New theater for a new world; Influences on contemporary thought; Postmodernism and the theater; Artaud and the theatre of cruelty; Theater collectives and alternative theater; Contemporary playwriting; Acting in contemporary plays; Contemporary dramatic criticism, deconstruction, theory, new approaches
Appendix: Glossary of terms.
