Deserving of wider exposure in the theater and the classroom, these scripts touch on the salient issues of the 1990s, including the Gulf War, racial and sexual relations, crises unique to big cities, immigration and multiculturalism, art and censorship, revisionist history, academic freedom, and the transformation of the American presidency.

The collection closes with Mac Wellman's "7 Blowjobs", a wicked send-up of the compromise politics that determined the fate of the National Endowment for the Arts. Taken together, these seven plays present an eclectic web of social thought and imagination that are uniquely American, offering the reader a splendid, honest study of a rich society in search of itself.