This page started out as a list of our favorite playwrights, but it quickly became too long and too obvious, with mostly well known playwrights and familiar plays, which didn’t seem to need any special promotion from us. So instead, we take the opportunity here to highlight somewhat lesser known (in many cases younger) playwrights, as well as some lesser known plays by well known playwrights. We take our cue from the topical collections of plays we avidly purchased in our youth, although we do not limit ourselves to three plays per category. The topics are listed in random order.
Scottish playwright J. M. Barrie is best known as the author of Peter Pan, but our favorite is his much lesser known The Admirable Crichton, which we saw at the Shaw Festival in 2011 and at American Players Theatre in 2012. Additional favorites are his one-acts The Twelve-Pound Look and Half an Hour.
If you’re in the mood for a first-class farce, you can’t do better than Georges Feydeau’s A Flea in Her Ear or Ferenc Molnar’s The Play’s the Thing. Other favorites are the one-acts Something on the Side by Feydeau and The President by Molnar.
A number of early-20th century playwrights are justly renowned for their superb serious dramas, but they also produced some lesser known but delightful comedies, such as Too Many Husbands (Somerset Maugham), When We Are Married (J. B. Priestly), and French Without Tears (Terence Rattigan). Conversely, John Van Druten, best known for comedies like I Remember Mama and Bell, Book and Candle, also wrote the fascinating drama London Wall, about the status of women in the workplace, which remains remarkably relevant today.
Any list of screwball comedies for the stage must begin with the plays of George S. Kaufman and his collaborators, including You Can’t Take it With You, The Royal Family, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Stage Door, and many others. Other favorites in this genre include Three Men on a Horse by Abbott and Holm, Social Security by Andrew Bergman, Greater Tuna by Williams, Sears, and Howard, Dearly Departed by Cottrell and Jones, and Tigers Be Still by Kim Rosenbrock.
For relief from the current political scene, we recommend State of the Union (Lindsay and Crouse), Both Your Houses (Maxwell Anderson), and The Best Man and Weekend (Gore Vidal). For more recent political fare, we recommend November (David Mamet), Farragut North (Beau Willimon), and The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Emmett Rensin).
The horror, as well as the banality, of war have been depicted in a number of powerful plays, including Journey’s End by R. C. Sherriff and To the Green Fields Beyond by Nick Whitby (both WWI), and WRENS by Anne McGravie (WWII). More contemporary conflicts are recounted in This Is War by Hannah Moscovitch and Women at War by Megan Carney.
In 2014 we were treated to two absorbing and insightful accounts of life in Chicago’s public schools, Principal Principle by Joe Zarrow, and Exit Strategy by Ike Holter.
Adapting a book for the stage often presents daunting challenges, such as how to fit the scope of a book-length story into the time and space limitations of live theatre. Some of our favorite successes include Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen adapted by Hanreddy and Sullivan, My Antonia by Willa Cather adapted by Jarrett Dapier, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck adapted by Frank Galati, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee adapted by Christopher Sergel, The Diary of Anne Frank adapted by Goodrich and Hackett, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison adapted by Oren Jacoby, and Native Son by Richard Wright adapted by Nambi E. Kelley.
As the name suggests, film noir is well represented in many classic movies, but the noir motif is less commonly found on stage. Three of our favorite examples are City of Dreadful Night by Don Nigro produced by the Den Theatre, and The Sweeter Option by John Henry Roberts and D.O.A. adapted by Elizabeth Lovelady from the classic film, both produced by Strawdog Theatre Company.
True crime is another genre that is more common in books and films, but a couple of favorites for the stage are Hauptmann and Never the Sinner, both by John Logan.
Most of our favorite musicals are standard book musicals with a plot and dialogue, but a select few jukebox musicals are also among our favorites, including Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Fats Waller), Smokey Joe’s Cafe (Lieber and Stoller), Five Guys Named Moe (Louis Jordan), Million Dollar Quartet (Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley), and And the World Goes ‘Round (Kander and Ebb)
Stories about science can be highly compelling, but they can be difficult to present on stage without becoming too technical. Some successful examples include Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler (DNA), QED by Peter Parnell (quantum physics), The How and the Why by Sarah Treem (reproductive biology), Creation’s Birthday by Hasan Padamsee (cosmology), and Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson (astronomy).
The societal implications of science can also be compelling, as in these plays about evolution: Inherit the Wind by Lawrence and Lee, In the Garden by Sara Gmitter, and How the World Began by Catherine Trieschmann.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb, has been the subject of at least two plays: In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Heinar Kipphardt (based on his infamous security clearance hearing) and The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Carson Kreitzer. We saw a riveting performance of the former by the Saint Sebastian Players in 2014, but unfortunately missed Next Theatre Company’s production of the latter in 2005, with David Cromer in the title role.
Theatre often takes you to places you’ve never been. A perfect example is the South Pole, as in The White Road by Karen Tarjan, The Royal Society of Antarctica by Mat Smart, and Conquest of the South Pole by Manfred Karge.
International intrigue is the subject of many of the stirring plays of J. T. Rogers, including The Overwhelming, Madagascar, Blood and Gifts, and White People. In a similar vein but on the domestic front are the equally absorbing plays of Jason Wells, including Men of Tortuga, The North Plan, and Perfect Mendacity. A very funny spoof of the thriller genre is The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow.
Documentary theatre is a relatively new theatrical form in which a factual story is presented based on interview transcripts, newspaper accounts, and other documents in much the same manner as a film documentary, but also using the techniques of live theatre, including actors depicting some or all of the events described. Good examples that we have seen include Gross Indecency (about the trials of Oscar Wilde) by Moises Kaufman, My Kind of Town (about police brutality in Chicago) by John Conroy, The Project(s) (about public housing in Chicago) by PJ Paparelli and Joshua Jaeger, Assassination Theater (about the assassination of President Kennedy) by Hillel Levin, and Spill (about the BP oil spill) by Leigh Fondakowski.
The invention and early history of television has been the subject of a number of notable plays, including The Farnsworth Invention by Aaron Sorkin, The Ruby Sunrise by Rinne Groff, Laughter on the 23rd Floor by Neil Simon, and My Favorite Year by Ahrens and Flaherty.
Boxing as a metaphor for life has inspired a number of plays, from the classics Golden Boy (both the play by Clifford Odets and the musical adaptation by Adams and Strouse) and Requiem for a Heavyweight by Rod Serling, to contemporary plays such as The Opponent by Brett Neveu, The Royale by Marco Ramirez, and Sucker Punch by Roy Williams.
Fascination with money has been the subject of a number of fascinating plays, including Serious Money by Caryl Churchill, Love and Money by Kelly Dennis, and Other People’s Money by Jerry Sterner.
Perhaps not surprisingly in an era of obesity and bullying, body image has been the subject of a number of contemporary plays, including Fat Pig by Neil LaBute, Eat Your Heart Out by Courtney Baron, If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet by Nick Payne, and The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter.
Gathering around the dinner table can bring out the best or the worst in most families. This familiar dynamic has been explored in a number of fine plays, including The Big Meal by Dan LeFranc, The Humans by Stephen Karam, Sweet and Sad (as well as the other Apple Family plays) by Richard Nelson, and Festen by David Eldridge.
LGBT issues are central in a number of contemporary plays; our favorites are the work of Philip Dawkins, whose plays in this vein include The Homosexuals, Charm, and Le Switch. Dawkins is also author of Failure: A Love Story, which may be the most charming play about death ever written.
We have seen two very different plays featuring a necklace as a token of cultural dislocation, powerfully portrayed in terms of intensely personal stories: Helen’s Necklace by Carole Frechette (English translation by John Murrell) and Yasmina’s Necklace by Rohina Malik.
Plays set in Idaho is a category totally dominated by one playwright, Samuel D. Hunter, whose sensitive slice-of-life plays include The Whale, A Permanent Image, Rest, Pocatello, and The Few.
Plays featuring a single actor can be a challenge for both performer and audience. Some of our favorite successful examples include Fully Committed by Becky Mode, I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright, The Blonde, the Brunette, and the Vengeful Redhead by Robert Hewett, An Iliad by O’Hare and Peterson, and The Pianist of Willesden Lane by Mona Golabek.
