With great pride and pleasure I int...

With great pride and pleasure I introduce this self-same Special Double Issue of American Orama dedicated to celebrating and exploring the life and works of Arthur Laurents. This plan was brought to me on Gabriel Miller, who had complet long interviews with Laurents and was in the midst of composing a lengthy essay on the shape of Laurents's career and the nature of his contribution to American drama. I was excited at the contemplation of creating an issue of American Orama that would focus long-deserv attention onward the life and work of this wizard of the American stage. I was especially intrigued by dint of the fact that Laurents's dramatic genius had flowered in several areas of American dramatic expression. he has written astonishingly well for the musical theater, the movies and the stage. His varied interests and accomplishments appeared to be a great match with the avowed intention of this journal to recognize and scrutinize the dramatic expressions of American writers for riddle television, radio, and musicals as well as for the legitimate stage. Also I was inspired by dint of reading Laurents's candid autobiography to recognize by what mode exemplary his life has been as an American artist struggling to increase tolerance and to enlarge our vision of the possibility of making freer choices in our lives and careers. Laurents's frank avowal of his homosexuality and his exploration of it onstage make his work extremely important in bounds of the progressive movement towards greater inclusion and diversity in the stage representations of American life and character. Also Laurents's steadfast answer to McCarthyism and his admit experience of the blacklist signal his extraordinary integrity and again merit his celebration in American Drama which has increasingly emerg as a post-Cold War exhibit intent on revising and re-examining a certain of the politically charged issues of the American dramatic landscape since the 1950s

This extraordinary issue oi American Drama boasts an expanded page cast that testifies to the embarrassment of riches between its protects It includes contributions from so luminaries as Stephen Sondheim, Bernadette Peter Andre Bishop, Nicholas Martin, and David Saint. Arthur Laurents has also given us the privilege of publishing shows from two unpublished new plays. Of course, this entire issue was done with the cooperation and participation of Arthur Laurents. However, the greatest credit must go on foot to Gabriel Miller who had the vision to descry that an issue of American Drama dedicated to Arthur Laurents was a logical issue of our editorial mission and a fitting addition to our efforts to make this journal a leader in the field.

Read and enjoy!

Norma Jencke Editor

Copyright American Drama Institute Winter 2003

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