US Theatre and Performance from 1898 to 1949 is a compelling and wonderfully varied account of the relationship between theatre in the United States and the social, cultural and political forces that shaped it during one of the most formative periods in the nation's history. Joshua Polster applies key thematic perspectives - Colonialism, Ethnicity and Race, Gender and Sexuality, Economic Systems, and Systems of Government - to seminal moments in US history. In doing so he explores the ways in which the theatre has responded to these turning points, through the work of some of its principal dramatists, directors, designers and theatre companies.