dents overseas (in particular the October 23 bomb-
ing of Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241
American servicemen), especially those committed
by or attributed to Palestinian and Islamic groups,
some of whom were believed to be sponsored by the
governments of Libya and Iran. Security enhance-
ments included the erection of concrete barriers
around government buildings, the curtailing of park-
ing around potential targets, and enhanced identifi-
cation requirements for entrance to government
buildings, airports, and other locations that might
attract terrorists. Federal law enforcement agencies
increased efforts to pass tougher legislation that
would focus on prosecuting terrorists and their sup-
porters. The primary change in Canadian govern-
mental responses to terrorism was the creation of
the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS),
an agency involved in gathering intelligence on per-
ceived threats to Canadian security.
Further Reading
Burns, Vincent, and Kate Dempsey Peterson, eds.
Terrorism: A Documentar y and Reference Guide.West-
port, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005. An easy-to-
use account of the past forty years of terrorism in
the United States, with particular emphasis on
the rise of terrorism related to the Middle East.
The text contains more than seventy essays and
documents discussing and detailing the issue of
terrorism and the United States.
Hansen, Ann.Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guer-
rilla.Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2002. A first-person
account by one of the members of the Canadian
leftist anarchist group convicted of bombing the
Litton Systems factory in Toronto.
Woodger, Elin, and David F. Burg.The 1980’s. New
York: Facts On File, 2006. An encyclopedic survey
of the events of the 1980’s written for a high
school audience.
Ron Jacobs
See also Air India Flight 182 bombing; Anderson,
Terry; Beirut bombings; Berg, Alan; Canadian ca-
per; Crime; Iranian hostage crisis; Klinghoffer, Leon;
Libya bombing; Pan Am Flight 103 bombing; Skin-
heads and neo-Nazis; Tylenol murders; U.S. Senate
bombing; West Berlin discotheque bombing.
Theater
Definition Significant stage presentations on
Broadway and across the United StatesMajor trends in theater, such as issues concerning women’s
rights and gay and lesbian rights, came to fruition in the
1980’s. Professional theater strengthened its position across
the United States, and there emerged new playwrights, ac-
tors, directors, and designers who included women, African
Americans, and Asian Americans.
The 1980’s saw the maturation and realization of
trends in American theater that had been develop-
ing in the past two decades. Among the most impor-
tant of these were the emergence of significant
female, Asian American, and African American the-
atrical artists and the recognition of the issues sur-
rounding gay and lesbian individuals in American
society. Most important, perhaps, was the strength-
ening of professional theater across the United
States, so that American theater was no longer sim-
ply Broadway theater.Theaters Across the United States Until the
1960’s, theater in the United States meant almost
exclusively theater on Broadway, but a movement
away from Broadway commenced in that decade and
reached maturation in the 1980’s. Off-Broadway the-
aters not only were located away from Times Square
playhouses but also were smaller in seating capacity.
Thus, the Actors’ Equity Association allowed the
performers to be paid less than their Broadway
counterparts. In Off-Broadway houses, such as the
Roundabout Theatre and the Manhattan Theatre
Club, new and experimental works were performed,
as were presentations by the Pan Asian Repertory
Theatre and the Negro Ensemble Company.
Soon, playhouses seating one hundred or less
were applying for even lower Actors’ Equity Associa-
tion rates, and these theaters took the designation
Off-Off-Broadway. Among the interesting Off-Off-
Broadway theaters was Ellen Stewart’s La MaMa Ex-
perimental Theatre Club, which in the 1980’s pre-
sented new experimental comedy and performance
art. By the 1980’s, there were important nonprofit
professional repertory theaters across the United
States, such as the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Amer-
ican Repertory Theatre at Harvard, the Mark Taper
Forum in Los Angeles, the Actors Theatre of Louis-
ville, Kentucky, and even two repertory theaters in962 Theater The Eighties in America