The British Invasion.

The best-known British Invasion of the 1960s occurred in rock 'n' roll, but American theaters also experienced an influx of talent from the United Kingdom, prompting one member of Actors Equity to claim that "New York is a British Festival." Irish playwright Brendan Behan's The Hostage was widely discussed in 1960, as were Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape and Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey. In the 1960s American theaters discovered British talents ranging from Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard to the antic revue Beyond the Fringe.

Edward Albee and the Theater of the Absurd.

One of the most respected dramatists, however, was an American: Edward Albee's one-act play The Zoo Story (1960) attracted the critics' attention and prepared the way for his biggest success, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962). Albee, perhaps incorrectly, was lumped in with other playwrights identified by critic...