Avery Hopwood: His Life and Plays

Avery Hopwood (1882-1928) was the most successful American playwright of his day, with four hits on Broadway at the same time.

Jack F. Sharrar's critical biography makes use of a rich array of primary sources--including Hopwood's letters to such friends as Gertrude Stein, Carl Van Vechten, and Mary Roberts Rinehart. The book provides fresh insights on the playwright, his plays and the personalities who produced and performed in them, by surveying the commercial theater of the period. Nicholas Delbanco, director of the University of Michigan's Hopwood Awards Program in creative writing provides a foreword; an afterword by Sharrar sheds new light on the passionate, tumultuous relationship between Hopwood and John Floyd; and many rare illustrations of Hopwood and his plays are also included.

"The definitive biography of this fascinating, somewhat tragic man, who so often made theatergoers forget their woes but who sometimes couldn't forget his own . . . . [A] wonderful book, as deep as it is entertaining." --TheaterWeek

Jack F. Sharrar, Ph.D., is Director Academic Affairs, American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, where he is also a core faculty member in the Graduate School of Acting. He is editor of Hopwood's heretofore unpublished novel, The Great Bordello, a Story of the Theater (Mondial, 2011), and adapter of Hopwood's comedy, Fair and Warmer (Playscripts, Inc.) and F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Debutante (Playscripts, Inc.). Nicholas Delbanco is Professor of English and Director of the University of Michigan's Hopwood Awards Program. His most recent novel is Old Scores (Warner Books, 1997).