ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the process by which playwrights came to choose to adapt particular historical material to the stage. In many cases, the impulse grew out of the playwright’s moral and political concerns that then led them to use a particular historical period’s events and issues as a way of illuminating contemporary social and political issues. The origins of Robert Schenkkan’s All the Way, Lisa Loomer’s Roe, Lynn Nottage’s Sweat and Nancy Keystone and the Critical Mass Performing Group’s Apollo reveal the personal and political concerns that led them to create these plays. Shakespeare’s use of the succession battles in previous English history to reflect the political turmoil of the Elizabethan era in which he wrote is also explored.
