ANN ARBOR, Mich., January 9, 2004 - ProQuest Information and Learning announces the first release of Twentieth Century Drama. When complete, the new database will contain 2,500 plays in English, the history of modern drama from the 1890s to the present day, all in searchable full text. ProQuest Information and Learning, a unit of ProQuest Company, creates and publishes databases for libraries and educational institutions worldwide.

Twentieth Century Drama is an important addition to ProQuest's acclaimed electronic literature databases. The works are largely in-copyright texts unavailable elsewhere in electronic form. Many are out-of-print works that are difficult to obtain. The full range of dramatic styles, genres and traditions will be represented, from widely studied and frequently performed plays to important examples of radical theater, regional theater, post-colonial theater, women's theater and popular forms such as farce and thriller that are often under-represented in surveys of the period.

The first release, now available, includes 239 plays by 25 authors from Britain, Ireland, and Australia, covering many key moments of innovation and revolution in modern theater.  It emphasizes the period from the 1890s to 1920s, which saw a rebirth of British drama under the influence of European modernism, and the rise of strong regional and national theaters.

Twentieth Century Drama represents key historical milestones in dramatics:

• The emergence of the social problem play, bringing controversial subject matter to the Victorian stage: The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893) and The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith (1895) by Arthur Wing Pinero, and Mrs. Dane's Defence (1900) by Henry Arthur Jones.
• The first Naturalist plays in English, including plays from Harley Granville Barker's legendary 1904-07 repertory seasons at the Royal Court: John Galsworthy's The Silver Box (1906) and Granville Barker's own The Voysey Inheritance (1905).
• The founding of the Irish National Theater: landmark plays such as W.B. Yeats's On Baile's Strand and Lady Augusta Gregory's Spreading the News (the two plays that opened the Abbey Theater in 1904), and J.M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (1907) and Deirdre of the Sorrows (1910).
• Realistic depictions of the First World War and its aftermath: Miles Malleson's radical plays 'D' Company and Black 'Ell (both 1916), R.C. Sherriff's Journey's End (1928) and W. Somerset Maugham's For Services Rendered (1932).
• A cross-section of popular West End comedies: from J.M. Barrie's lightly satirical fantasies (The Admirable Crichton, 1902; Peter Pan, 1904) and Arnold Bennett's more naturalistic The Great Adventure (1913) to the brilliant comedies of manners of Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895) and Somerset Maugham (The Circle, 1921).
• The 1956 revolution at the Royal Court Theater, which brought avant-garde European works to the London stage, along with works by a new generation of British writers: Arnold Wesker's hugely influential depictions of working-class life in Chicken Soup with Barley (1958), Roots (1959) and I'm Talking About Jerusalem (1960).
• The rise of alternative theater in the 1970s: companies such as the 7:84 Theater Company, the left-wing group that staged one of the most significant pieces of post-war British political theater, John McGrath's The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil (1973); and the Australian Performing Group, the Melbourne-based cooperative that launched the career of Australia's most successful playwright, David Williamson (Don's Party, 1971; The Removalists, 1971).

The collection also includes plays by important literary authors of the period, including poetic dramas such as Thomas Hardy's The Dynasts (1904-08), James Elroy Flecker's popular success Hassan (1923), and Joseph Conrad's adaptation of his novel The Secret Agent (1922).

Authors and plays have been selected by an academic advisory board. The collection includes each writer's complete dramatic works for major authors. For less prominent authors, a representative sample has been selected. In some cases, a single play by a given author has been included owing to its particular significance. Authors who feature prominently in both the academic canon and the current theatrical repertoire are emphasized, but the collection also includes plays that have suffered neglect owing to lack of availability in print, and to others by authors of historical importance.

Selection has been limited to works originally written in English. However, translations of non-English-language works have been included where these form part of a playwright's main oeuvre: examples include W.B. Yeats's Sophocles' King Oedipus (1928) and Lady Augusta Gregory's translation of Molière's The Doctor in Spite of Himself (1906).

Each text is reproduced in full, including any accompanying text by the author, plus relevant supplementary matter such as dramatis personae and any illustrations that are integral to the text.  Users many search by keyword, title, playwright (by name, gender and/or nationality), date first performed, publication date, and genre or they may browse lists of options for most fields. Advanced search options offer users the ability to pinpoint search results by director, theater company, designer, and more.

The majority of the plays contained in Twentieth-Century Drama are copyright works that have never before been licensed for electronic reproduction. In accordance with the high value of this content, the rights that have been granted by the rights holders have certain restrictions attached to them: users can only download smaller divisions of a work, such as an act or scene, and users wishing to print sections of a text must first confirm that they will not infringe conditions of fair usage. Public domain texts can be accessed without such restrictions.

Twentieth Century Drama is available by subscription or as a stand-alone purchase. Free trials are available. Libraries may receive more information by contacting their account representative at 1-800-521-0600, ext. 3183 or 3452 (outside the U.S., call +44-1-223-215-512) or pqsales@il.proquest.com. Editors may call 1-800-521-0600, ext. 6489 or email pr@il.proquest.com.

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