Frontier dramas were among the most popular and successful of early-twentieth-century Broadway type plays. The long runs of contemporary dramas not only indicate the popularity of these plays but also tell us that these plays offered views about the frontier that original audiences could and did embrace.

PART I: THE AXES OF ANALYSIS: FRONTIER WESTERN DISCOURSE AND THEATRE PRACTICE The Frontier Western Discourse at the Turn of the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century The Turn-of-the-Century American Theatre Context PART II: THE PLAYS Discipline and Spontaneity: Clyde Fitch's The Cowboy and the Lady and Augustus Thomas's Arizona Drama from Novels: John Ermine of the Yellowstone and The Virginian Variations on the Frontier Myth: Edward Milton Royle's The Squaw Man and David Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West From Melodrama to Realism: William Vaughn Moody's The Great Divide and Rachel Crothers's The Three of Us

RICHARD WATTENBERG Professor of Theatre Arts at Portland State University, USA.