"Coming together to lift a celebratory glass to their peculiarities, as if they have suddenly found themselves together again in Nick's Pacific Street bar from Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life "(1939), the carefully assembled guests of David Roman's "Performance in America "add up to an improbable but exhilarating ensemble. Anyone who can make Elaine Stritch feel right at home at a party with the ghost of Sarah Siddons will show you the time of your life, and Roman is that kind of host, entertaining the divas of stage, screen, dance, and cabaret while cordially welcoming his readers. rsvp."--Joseph Roach, author of "Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance"

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction: Here and Now 1
1. Not About AIDS 49
2. Visa Denied: Chay Yew's Theatre of Immigration and the Performance of Asian American History 78
3. Latino Genealogies: Broadway and Beyond — the Case of John Leguizamo 109
4. Archival Drags; or, the Afterlife of Performance 137
5. Cabaret as Cultural History: Popular Song and Public Performance in America 179
6. Tragedy and the Performing Arts in the Wake of September 11, 2001 226
Afterword: The Time of Your Life 281
Notes 311
Bibliography 333
Index 345