"The Great American Playwrights on the Screen is a complete, up-to-date record of movie and television productions of classic and contemporary works by America's greatest playwrights. Rich in historical value and detail, this reference book not only tracks Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winners, but also unearths unheralded treasures and forgotten performances by great actors and the great directors they served. Organized in an easy-to-use A-Z format, it features more than 200 playwrights - including Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman, Eugene O'Neill, Neil Simon, Wendy Wasserstein, and Tennessee Williams - and compares and contrasts the adapted versions of their works, including colorful reviews by prominent critics of TV and film (beginning with those of the silent era)." "The profound expansion of television into American homes in the 1950s brought a flood of adapted plays to the small screen and resulted in the rebirth of the careers of many significant playwrights. The Great American Playwrights on the Screen provides fans with a video and DVD guide to the adapted works of the playwrights and shows which versions are available for home viewing and in what media (VHS and DVD). It resurrects the memory of television productions of plays at a critical time, when many of them - including Emmy winners and nominees - are deteriorating in vaults."--Jacket.