Plays

By Susan Glaspell

1782

First Published

4.10

Average Rating

190

Number of Pages

5H48M

Audio Length

Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 28, 1948) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. With her husband George Cram Cook she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theater company. During the Great Depression she served in the Works Progress Administration as Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project. A prolific writer, Glaspell is known to have composed nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories and one biography. Often set in her native Midwest, these semi-autobiographical tales frequently address contemporary social issues, such as gender, ethics and dissent, while featuring deep, sympathetic characters who make principled stands. A best-selling author in her own time, Glaspell's stories fell out of print after her death, during which time she was remembered primarily for discovering Eugene O'Neill. Critical reassessment has led to renewed interest in her career, and she is today recognized as a pioneering feminist writer and America's first important modern female playwright. Her one-act play Trifles (1916) is frequently cited as one of the greatest works of American theater, though she remains, according to Britain's leading theatre critic Michael Billington, "American drama's best kept secret.

Avg Rating

4.10

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

38%

4 STARS

34%

3 STARS

28%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Susan Glaspell

Author · 12 books

Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 27, 1948) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actress, director, novelist, biographer and poet. She was a founding member of the Provincetown Players, one of the most important collaboratives in the development of modern drama in the United States. She also served in the Works Progress Administration as Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project. Her novels and plays are committed to developing deep, sympathetic characters, to understanding 'life' in its complexity. Though realism was the medium of her fiction, she was also greatly interested in philosophy and religion. Many of her characters make principled stands. As part of the Provincetown Players, she arranged for the first ever reading of a play by Eugene O'Neill.