The paper discusses the presence and reception of M. Gorky's drama on the US stage in the XX century. The theatrical fate of the Russian writer's plays is examined in the wide political and cultural Russian-American macro-context. The analysis of overseas productions of Gorky's drama leads to the conclusion that his works after an entire century in the theater of the United States were a marginal phenomenon. There are two distinct surges of interest by American theatre figures to Gorky's plays in the “Red 1930s” and the 1970s. Most often, Gorky's drama was taken up not by commer-cial theaters of New York (Broadway), but by off- and off-off-Broadway as well as regional, university and amateur ones. From all of Gorky's numerous plays, his work “The Lower Depths” was produced the most. This study allows for further deepening the understanding the stage fate of the domestic author's the plays in the United States and also to clarify the picture of cultural relations between the two countries in the twentieth century.