presents serial archive listings for

The Best Plays, and The Year Book of the Drama in America

The Best Plays, and The Year Book of the Drama in America is a summary title for an annual retrospective on the theater season in New York and elsewhere in America. It has often included summaries and partial scripts of outstanding plays of the season. Recent editions are published as The Best Plays Theater Yearbook.

Publication History

Burns Mantle began the annual series in 1920 with "The Best Plays of 1919-20 and the Year Book of the Drama in America", and continued to edit the series until 1947. Retrospectives were also eventually published covering 1894-1919. The links below are dated by the season(s) they cover, not their publication date. Many volumes published after 1925 have renewed copyrights, or include plays with renewed active copyrights. The series continues today, though it now lags the theater season by a few years.

Persistent Archives of Complete Issues

• 1894-1899, 1919-1928: HathiTrust has the early 1919-1928 issues and the 1894-1899 retrospective readable online. (The retrospective was published in 1955.) Other volumes are searchable but not readable online.

Official Site / Current Material

• The Best Plays Theater Yearbook site has more information on the current publication, and information and material from recent volumes.

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