What to Read by College Graduation

Most students do not grow up reading plays, save the ones they encounter in school literature classes: likely a Shakespeare, maybe an Arthur Miller, in rare cases a piece by a woman and, even less likely, one written in the current century!

But plays are still being written, every day. They’re written by people who share lived experiences with you and/or are from the same places as you as well as by those who live a strikingly different life than you, whether just next door or from far away.

Each time, their writing immerses you in a new theatrical world, whether creatively crafted or truthfully documented, thought-provoking or laughter-inducing, familiar or fresh. The dynamic range of plays in the world showcase varied lived experiences, fantastical situations and even striking realism, teaching us empathy and critical thinking and wonder – as well as how to have fun!

Whether you need a laugh or a think, these kinds of plays (and our recommendations to suit them) are the ones you must read between high school graduation and college graduation. Get a head start on your theatrical journey by infusing your reading list with these new plays!

How this works:

We put our heads together and came up with a few trail markers for a formative theatrical journey – i.e. groupings of plays that contribute to well-rounded theatrical knowledge AND a creatively-inspiring time!

Below, you’ll see nine of these groupings with a few suggestions to satisfy that play-reading quest. By working your way through each subset of the theatrical literary world, you will emerge a more knowledgeable, learned and creative artist (or theatre lover!)

Happy reading!

Our Recommendations:

1. A classic that still feels new

Dramaturg Mark Bly once said that a classic remains a classic because it still resonates in new contexts. It feels new – despite being old – because its themes, motifs or characters speak to concepts that are timeless, that repeat across history, or unearth resonance in a contemporary world when looked at from a new perspective. Make sure you’ve got a few classics (or responses to classics) on your reading list! Below are a few suggestions from Concord Theatricals.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking drama, a searing and timeless portrait of a family on Chicago’s South Side, is an American classic. The play was a turning point in the history of the American theatre, as it marked one of the first times that Black life was essentialized onstage – making the dictum that theatre “holds a mirror up to nature” true for all citizens of the United States. The play concerns the divergent dreams and conflicts in three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis and matriarch Lena. Hansberry’s portrait of one family’s struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration. Familiarity with A Raisin in the Sun is essential, as it opened the door for the voices of several Black theatre writers in the 20th century and beyond.

August Wilson’s Fences by August Wilson (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Arguably the most famous play in August Wilson’s Century Cycle, this superb drama follows Troy Maxson, a former star of the Negro baseball leagues who now works as a garbage man in 1957 Pittsburgh. Excluded as a Black man from the major leagues during his prime, Troy grapples with his failures, racial injustices and strained relationships as his bitterness takes its toll on his wife and his son, who now wants his own chance to play ball. The universality of its themes – fatherhood, generational trauma, the effects of systemic racism and regrets about what could have been – is a stark reminder of how systemic barriers shaped the Black experience, and resonates contemporarily with the ongoing conversation around social justice and sports.

Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman, based on the myths of Ovid (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w, 5m + ensemble)
Called by Time the “theater event of the year,” Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses brings Ovid classic’s tales to stunning visual life. Often (though not necessarily) set in and around a large pool of water onstage, this stunning drama juxtaposes the ancient and the contemporary to reflect the variety and persistence of narrative in the face of inevitable change. Nominated for three Tony Awards including Best Play, Metamorphoses earned Zimmerman a Tony for Best Direction of a Play.

Mary Zimmerman often adapts classic texts to the stage. Other plays of hers to consider include: Argonautika (US/UK), Journey to the West (US/UK), The Arabian Nights (US/UK), The Odyssey (US/UK), The Secret in the Wings (US/UK), The White Snake (US/UK) and Treasure Island (US/UK).

The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy)
Combining farce, burlesque and satire, Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play depicts an Everyman family as it narrowly escapes one end-of-the-world disaster after another, from the Ice Age to flood to war. “Wonderfully wise” (Herald Tribune), its focus on human endurance – especially as we continue to face the effects of climate change and the consequences of human actions – makes this play first written in 1942 feel like it could have been written today.

Top Girls by Caryl Churchill (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Caryl Churchill’s hilarious, groundbreaking, gritty play about the fictional “Top Girls” employment agency begins with a time-warped luncheon attended by women in legend or history offering their perspectives on maternity and ambition. Churchill’s experimental style of writing showcases new thematic techniques in theatre paired with the fascinating psychology of these women and their life experiences, while the play’s themes of ambition, class and feminism are topics we still engage with on a daily basis.

For more classic plays for your reading list, see our Classic Plays Collection in the US or the UK.

2022 Atlantic Theater Company and Roundabout Theatre Company Co-Production of English (Ahron R. Foster)

2. An award-worthy work from the past year

When plays win awards, it’s often because they do something innovative with the art form, strike a deeply resonant chord with the current moment, or are just incredibly well-crafted! Either way, they are notable and worth getting to know. Here’s a few recent recommendations.

English by Sanaz Toossi (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Intricate, hilarious and profound, Sanaz Toossi’s 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning and 2025 Tony Award-nominated play is set in 2008 in an Iranian classroom, where four adult students prepare for the TOEFL – the Test of English as a Foreign Language. The students are led by Marjan, an anglophile who abolishes Farsi from her classroom. They translate Ricky Martin and endure major preposition confusion; they discover how to be funny in English and ponder what they will lose in the process. As the class slowly devolves into a linguistic mess, some students cling tighter to their mother tongue while others embrace the possibilities of a new language. This play brings Iranian culture – as well as the immigrant experience of learning a new language – to the stage in a way that will both take your breath away and elicit laughs.

Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy)
Winner of the 2025 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play! The Eureka Day School in Berkeley, California, is a bastion of progressive ideals: representation, acceptance, social justice. When a mumps outbreak threatens the Eureka community, facts become subjective and every solution divisive, leaving the school’s leadership to confront the central question of our time: How do you build consensus when no one can agree on truth? In an era where we question what it means to be a good parent and how to agree across polarity and entrenched ideals, this play approaches those questions in a thoughtful manner (with an especially innovative scene involving texting, too!).

Liberation by Bess Wohl (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Winner of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and the 2026 Tony Award for Best Play, Bess Wohl’s provocative, funny and moving look at feminism is a refreshingly irreverent and intensely relevant powerhouse of a play. It’s 1970. Somewhere in Ohio, six women meet on a basement basketball court to form a consciousness-raising group, determined to shake up their lives and change the world. Fifty years later, one of their daughters tries to understand where things fell apart. This wildly theatrical play poses vital questions about friendship, legacy and the true meaning of liberation, investigating what we inherit, what we forget and what we’re still fighting to understand and offers a chance for current generations to be in conversation with the history of feminism on a personal level.

Little Bear Ridge Road by Samuel D. Hunter (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
In Samuel D. Hunter’s bitterly funny and incisively thoughtful Broadway drama – nominated for the 2026 Tony Award for Best New Play – a reclusive aunt and her gay nephew reunite to sort the mess left after a troubled father’s passing. This play marked Samuel D. Hunter’s Broadway debut, but Hunter is a brilliant and widely produced playwright and prior recipient of the Drama Desk Award, an Obie and the MacArthur Fellowship. His works are largely set in his home state of Idaho, and he is known for using humor and compassion to bring to life the stories of characters facing situations of social withdrawal. Seclusion and loneliness are a thread found in many of Hunter’s plays, including The Whale, perhaps his most known work, whose film adaptation won an Academy Award for Brendan Fraser’s lead performance. Knowing his work is a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of new and exciting theatre.

Oh, Mary! by Cole Escola (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy)
A 2025 Tony Award nominee for Best Play and a 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Drama finalist, this riotous, campy, outrageous comedy dares to ask: what won’t Mary Todd Lincoln do to be a star? Mary Todd Lincoln is tired of Washington, DC. The nation’s capital is so boring; she would much rather be onstage, where she belongs, starring in a cabaret. And if she can’t do that, she might as well drink. The entire White House is fed up with Mary’s antics, most of all her bore of a husband, who can’t focus on anything except his silly Civil War. To get her out of his hair, Abe hires a handsome, up-and-coming actor to give Mary acting lessons, hoping to keep her busy and out of trouble, but the distraction ends up working a little too well.

The Ally by Itamar Moses (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
A finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, this play brings multicultural perspectives into conversation with great thought and care. When a university professor is asked to sign a social justice manifesto, he expects to be able to do so without hesitation. Instead, he becomes embroiled in an increasingly conflicted web of relationships that challenge his commitments as a liberal, a husband, an academic, an American, an atheist and a Jew. With tensions at an all-time high, Asaf is forced to confront the age-old question: “If I am only for myself, what am I?”

Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
A finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and later a 2025 nominee for Best Revival of a Play, this play by the legendary David Henry Hwang critically confronts race and theatre. The lines between truth and fiction blur with hilarious and moving results in this unreliable memoir play. In it, Asian American playwright “DHH” protests the casting of a white actor in an Asian role, condemning the practice as “yellow face.” But his position comes back to haunt him when he mistakenly casts a Caucasian actor in the lead Asian role of his own Broadway-bound comedy. Confronting the shifting boundaries of race, and the ways in which we interpret ourselves, Hwang and DHH reveal that our faces are always more complex than they appear.

For more award-worthy and award-winning plays, peruse our Featured Award-Winning Plays & Musicals collection (US/UK) or the below Breaking Character articles:

To support award-worthy work by women, explore the articles “Groundbreaking Women at the Tonys & Pulitzers” and “Pioneering Women at the Olivier Awards.”
To peruse winners of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, try the article “Pulitzer Prize-Winning Plays and Musicals from Concord Theatricals.”
To discover works who won the top prize at Radio City Music Hall, read the article “Tony Award-Winning Plays and Musicals from Concord Theatricals.”

2019 Public Theater Production of White Noise (Joan Marcus)

3. A few contemporary plays that were written and published in the past five years

Keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s new keeps you up-to-date with contemporary styles, new and innovative structures and recurring themes, and it also allows you to discover new playwrights you may want to follow for years to come. After all, living playwrights are still writing new plays every day! Below, sample a few recent titles, all published in the past few years.

anthropology by Lauren Gunderson (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Wracked with grief, coder Merril creates an A.I. chatbot that can perfectly recreate her deceased sister Angie. As the virtual Angie begins to demand more presence in Merril and her mother’s lives, reality and consciousness blur, and new moral questions arise about the right, safe and acceptable ways to grieve.

Business Ideas by Milo Cramer (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
In a too-cute café, a desperate mother and daughter brainstorm get-rich-quick schemes to pay for college (or maybe to make ends meet?). Meanwhile, their hapless server tries to network with a revolving cast of customers, all hilariously played by one actor. Inspired by playwright Milo Cramer’s own experiences with his enterprising mom, Business Ideas is an award-winning comedy about getting rich (or not?), and whether money really buys happiness – one cup of coffee at a time.

California by Trish Harnetiaux (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy)
A family road trip takes an unexpected turn when, in the dark of night, on the plains of eastern Oregon, reality splits. In this brilliant exploration of deep familial bonds and the threat of mortality, playwright Trish Harnetiaux addresses fractured time, memory and interpersonal relationships with real honesty in a thoughtful blend of melancholy and heart.

Corners Grove by Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
A nod to Our Town, this new play shifts Thornton Wilder’s masterpiece into the twenty-first century, to a small town south of San Francisco. George, Emily and their friends are determined to live their lives on their own terms and to shed versions of themselves they’ve outgrown, whether that be their high school sweetheart or their gender identity.

Hang Time by Zora Howard (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Three brothers chew the fat under an old, wide tree. In this exploration of intergenerational bonds, we peek into the interiority – the great loves and bitter blues – of Black men in America. Powerfully addressing the horror of lynching, Hang Time is a deeply moving and subversive work by Pulitzer Prize finalist Zora Howard.

The Antiquities by Jordan Harrison (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
At the Museum of Late Human Antiquities, the curators are fiercely committed to bringing a lost civilization to life again: What were humans really like? What did they wear, what did they eat, how did they die out? By casting us into the far future, Jordan Harrison’s play gives us an uncanny view of the present moment, as we straddle the analog world that was and the post-human world to come.

White Noise by Suzan-Lori Parks (US/UK)
(Full Length Play, Drama)
Long-time friends and lovers Leo, Misha, Ralph and Dawn are educated, progressive, cosmopolitan and woke. But when a racially motivated incident with the cops leaves Leo shaken, he decides extreme measures must be taken for self-preservation. A play about race, friendship and our rapidly unraveling social contract.

You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! by Keiko Green (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Greg’s received a terminal diagnosis. At least he’s in good company – the planet’s on its last legs, too. Coincidence? Not for Greg. After all, the world’s too big not to be kind of magical in this celebration-of-life play.

For more contemporary titles, keep an eye on this year’s New Publications Collection (US/UK) or peruse the past years’ iterations, including New Publications 2025 (US) and New Publications 2024 (US).

2023 Signature Theatre Company Production of Letters From Max (Joan Marcus)

4. A piece with poetic passages and wordplay galore

Some playwrights are also poets, and since playwriting usually contains all other genres, their crossover skillset often contributes to striking innovations in form and syntax that evoke new layers of theatricality. From Shakespeare to Sarah Ruhl to Erika Dickerson-Despenza and more, discover the brilliant wordplay of these playwrights in the titles below.

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy)
Tom Stoppard was known for his utilization of illusion and wordplay in weaving together his narratives, whether by paralleling Shakespearean syntax in his well-known Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (US/UK) or by introducing intelligent, well-read characters who interact with literature, as with the teenage prodigy Thomasina in Arcadia. This brilliant play moves smoothly between 1809 and the present as it explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between classical and romantic temperaments and the disruptive influence of sex on our life orbits – the force of attraction Newton left out.

cullud wattah by Erika Dickerson-Despenza (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Part meditation/call to action, part domestic drama, this play by poet-playwright Erika Dickerson-Despenza explores the effects of the Flint water crisis on a multigenerational family of Black women. Blending form and bending time, cullud wattah dives deep into the poisonous choices of the outside world, the contamination within, and how we make the best choices for our families’ future when there are no real, present options. The play is filled with breathtaking poetic passages that capture the emotional impact of this crisis on families.

Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea by Nathan Alan Davis (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Eighteen-year-old Dontrell Jones the Third decides that it is his duty and destiny to venture into the Atlantic Ocean in search of an ancestor lost during the Middle Passage. But his family is not at all ready to abandon its prized son to the waters of a mysterious and haunting past. Blending poetry, humor, wordplay, and ritual, Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea is a present-day hero’s quest exploring the lengths and depths we must go to redeem history’s wrongs.

Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Here, Sarah Ruhl reimagines the classic myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine. Dying too young on her wedding day, Eurydice must journey to the underworld, where she reunites with her father and struggles to remember her lost love. With contemporary characters, ingenious plot twists and breathtaking visual effects, the play is a fresh look at a timeless love story. Sarah Ruhl, as a poet and a playwright, uses her poetry to invite collaboration from actors, creative teams and designers alike for especially theatrical moments in her plays; in this play, those moments include a raining elevator, an abstracted River of Forgetfulness and a string that represents a room in the Underworld. For another such play where a character becomes so melancholy that “she turns into an almond,” see Melancholy Play (US/UK).

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Capturing the brutal, tender and dramatic lives of contemporary Black women, for colored girls… offers a transformative, riveting evening of provocative dance, music and poetry. This groundbreaking “choreopoem” is a spellbinding collection of vivid prose and free verse narratives about and performed by Black women.

Letters From Max by Sarah Ruhl, based on a correspondence with Max Ritvo (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
An adaptation of Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo’s 2018 epistolary book, Letters from Max: A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship, this intimate, poetic play explores the relationship between Sarah and her former student, Max. With humor, lyricism and candor, the two friends share letters and poems as Max faces terminal illness and tests poetry’s capacity to put to words what otherwise feels ineffable. This play leans more into the thought process behind crafting poetry and the intention it brought to a very meaningful relationship in this poet-playwright’s life.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
For a more absurdist use of language in service of theatre-making, consider Samuel Beckett’s well-known masterpiece of existentialism, first staged in 1953. In it, Samuel Beckett explores the futility of man’s hope through the experiences of two wanderers named Vladimir and Estragon who wait by a lonely tree to meet up with Mr. Godot, an enigmatic figure in a world where time, place and memory are blurred and meaning is where you find it. The result of their waiting? Both funny and dangerous, and the use of language and repetition establishes the style and tone of this theatrical world.

For more plays with poetry and wordplay, explore our collection of Shows with Poetic Language (US/UK).

2023 Broadway Production of A Doll’s House by Amy Herzog (Emilio Madrid)

5. A classic that expands the canon – or a contemporary play that responds to it

While you’ve likely already encountered some of the “canon” or will do course in future classes, it’s important to dedicate time to important plays not deemed essential by their original contexts or to consider new perspectives not originally part of the conversations. Here, consider some plays that expanded the canon or offered a new lens on a canonical story.

A Doll’s House by Amy Herzog, adapted from the play by Henrik Ibsen (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 2m)
Ibsen’s celebrated play thrust drama firmly into the modern age when it premiered in 1879. Now, nearly 150 years later, acclaimed playwright Amy Herzog makes freshly relevant a story that shocked audiences and brought forth a new era of theatre. Herzog’s thrilling, compact and devastatingly contemporary adaptation runs a mere 110 minutes.

Becky Nurse of Salem by Sarah Ruhl (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy / 4w, 3m)
Out of work and out of love, Becky Nurse is an ordinary but strong-willed grandmother just trying to get by in post-Obama America. She’s also the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Rebecca Nurse, from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (US), who was infamously executed for witchcraft in 1692 – but things have changed for women since then, haven’t they? Desperate to raise her troubled teenaged granddaughter right and also hook up with an old flame, Becky visits a local witch for help. But those spells and potions don’t work out exactly as planned.

Creditors by Jen Silverman, adapted from the play by August Strindberg (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 2m)
In this new Strindberg adaptation by Jen Silverman, Adi, a struggling painter, finds his creative spark reignited by Gustav, a magnetic stranger at an isolated seaside hotel. Their connection is instant and intimate, but what seems like a chance encounter quickly twists into something far darker, as Gustav becomes intrigued by Adi’s wife, the dazzling Tekla. The night devolves into an intricate web of deception, seduction and revelation, where the lives of all involved may be destroyed or transformed.

Fat Ham by James Ijames (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames reinvents Shakespeare’s masterpiece with his new drama, a delectable comic tragedy. Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. From an uproarious family barbecue emerges a compelling examination of love and loss, pain and joy.

Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy (US/UK)
(Short Play, Drama)
At a time where Black writers for theatre mostly wrote in a realistic style, playwright Adrienne Kennedy notably ventured into surrealism, drawing upon characters both historical and imagined to convey the African-American experience in the 1960s. Her Obie-winning classic Funnyhouse of a Negro – a daring, complex, groundbreaking work – explores themes of racial identity as Sarah, a young Black woman living in New York City, struggles to understand her place in a world steeped in racism and conflict. This search is manifested in Sarah’s many selves: Queen Victoria, the Duchess of Hapsburg, Patrice Lumumba and Jesus Christ. Performed by colleges worldwide, Adrienne Kennedy’s landmark play continues to resonate with each new generation.

Our Town (Bilingual) by Thornton Wilder with translated passages by Michel Hausmann (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 7w, 10m)
Narrated by a stage manager and performed with minimal props and sets, Our Town depicts the small town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, through three acts: “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage” and “Death and Eternity.” Thornton Wilder’s iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning play is reimagined for the 21st century in this new English/Spanish translation. In this bilingual version, Emily and the Webb family speak Spanish at home and English with their neighbors, some of whom also speak Spanish. The Stage Manager, the Gibbs family, and most other characters speak English only. The play’s stage directions are written in English, and an English translation is provided for all dialogue in Spanish. This play has also been adapted into three languages – English, Spanish and Creole – in Our Town (Multilingual) with translation by Nilo Cruz & Jeff Augustin (US).

The Inheritance by Matthew López (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Decades after the height of the AIDS epidemic, The Inheritance tells the story of three generations of gay men in New York City attempting to forge a future for themselves. Inspired by E.M. Forster’s masterpiece Howards End, this two-part play is an epic examination of survival, healing and what it means to call a place home.

Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Set during rehearsals for a major Broadway production, Trouble in Mind illuminates the inner life of a Black actress struggling with her career. Alice Childress’s 1955 play – which finally premiered on Broadway in 2021 after years of being overlooked – is a funny, moving and heartbreaking look at racism, identity and ego in the high-stakes world of New York theatre. A talented and experienced Black actress has been cast in an anti-lynching play set to open on Broadway. She’s paid her dues throughout the years, playing stereotypical supporting roles in second-rate shows, and is ready for her star turn. Chaos in Belleville, written by a white playwright, might not be quite as enlightened a piece as she’s been hoping for – but that doesn’t mean it won’t sell out. And selling out is the question at the heart of Alice Childress’ brilliant comedy-drama.

Wife of a Salesman by Eleanor Burgess (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Acclaimed playwright Eleanor Burgess brings her gift for sharp dialogue and spirited debate to this fascinating new play. When a devoted housewife – from the classic American drama Death of a Salesman (US) – tracks down the woman who is sleeping with her husband, the two discover that they have more in common than society would like them to believe. Important questions of marriage, duty and happiness rise to the surface in this frank exposé of the ways in which the world has and hasn’t changed across generations.

For more plays along this wavelength, see suggestions in the “Adaptations for Professional Theatres” article on Breaking Character.

2022 Manhattan Theatre Club Production of How I Learned to Drive (Jeremy Daniel)

6. An adventure in structure

Once you’ve been through some classic reads and contemporary styles, you may want to take a journey through a unique or challenging story structure. Below, explore plays that innovate with structure and form.

Constellations by Nick Payne (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
One relationship. Infinite possibilities. In how many universes would you love someone? Nick Payne’s Olivier award-winning Constellations is a play about free will and friendship; it’s about quantum multiverse theory, love and honey. What could be a simple romance story instead here utilizes a nontraditional story structure, often repeating scenes and ending with different outcomes than before, to ask not just “what if?” but also “what is?” and “what could be?”.

Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
At the Frasier household, preparations for Grandma’s birthday party are underway. Beverly is holding on to her sanity by a thread to make sure this party is perfect, but her sister can’t be bothered to help, her husband doesn’t seem to listen, her brother is MIA, her daughter is a teenager, and maybe nothing is what it seems in the first place. In a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, an experimental structure provides a searing examination of families, drama, family dramas and the insidiousness of white supremacy.

Frontieres Sans Frontieres by Phillip Howze (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Here, at the corner of a country that feels both foreign and familiar, three orphaned, stateless youths have built a simple life out of recreation and mischief-making. Their world is rocked as a parade of immodest strangers slowly invade, offering gifts of language, medicine, art and commerce. As the lure of development blurs their beliefs, life and landscape mutate, threatening their long-held values, community and humanity. In its comic spectacle to challenge the pretense of altruism and civilization, this play utilizes a kaleidoscopic structure of scenes to bring both the global and the particular together at once.

How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
A wildly funny, surprising and devastating tale of survival as seen through the lens of a troubling relationship between a young girl and an older man, this is the story of a woman who learns the rules of the road and life from behind the wheel. Paula Vogel adds another masterpiece to her collection in this tender and Pulitzer-winning piece about childhood trauma that impacts but doesn’t define. Deftly handling sensitive themes with humor and honesty, How I Learned to Drive commands the wheel and takes audiences on an emotionally rewarding journey. Structurally, the play follows a non-linear trajectory, using flashbacks, monologues and heightened moments to theatrically depict and interact with memory and trauma.

The Great Leap by Lauren Yee (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
When an American college basketball team travels to Beijing for a “friendship” game in the post-Cultural Revolution 1980s, both countries try to tease out the politics behind this newly popular sport. Cultures clash as the Chinese coach tries to pick up moves from the Americans and Chinese American player Manford spies on his opponents. Inspired by events in her own father’s life, Yee’s keen writing unpacks a generation. In terms of structure, pay attention to how the rhythms and pacing of a basketball game are utilized as the structure of the play itself. In general, sports plays often utilize the sport’s rules or rhythms as the structure for the theatrical piece; for another example of this, try Anna Ziegler’s The Last Match (US).

To Tell a Story About the Earth by Miranda Rose Hall (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 6 any gender)
After a disastrous first production, a fledgling theatre company wants to call it quits. But when the local librarian requests a new performance for Earth Day, the artists have a decision to make. Part scripted play, part guided introduction to devising methods, this unique work prompts ensembles everywhere to create and share an original show about the natural world close to home.

2023 Public Theater Production of Manahatta (Joan Marcus)

7. A play from a lived experience that is not your own

Expand your mind (and your empathy) by exploring lived experiences that are unfamiliar to you, theatrically!

Aubergine by Julia Cho (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
A man shares a bowl of berries, and a young woman falls in love. A world away, a mother prepares a bowl of soup to keep her son from leaving home. And a son cooks a meal for his dying father to say everything that words can’t. In this poignant and lyrical play, the making of a perfect meal is an expression more precise than language and the medium through which life gradually reveals itself.

Bad Kreyòl by Dominique Morisseau (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
A beautiful play about interrogating cultural identity and global impact. Simone, first-generation Haitian American, and her cousin Gigi, Haitian-born and raised, reunite to honor their grandmother’s dying wish for them to reconnect. Simone’s pilgrimage back to her ancestral homeland forces both cousins to confront their differing world views.

Cephianne’s Reflection by Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
For hundreds of years, the inhabitants of the invisible Ma Isle have journeyed into the wilderness when they come of age and emerged gifted with special abilities… Until Cephianne, the youngest child of their immortal matriarch, fails her seeking ritual – emerging from the woods unchanged – and finds an enthralling man in her mirror. This contemporary fairytale is penned in homage to the Gullah dialect and the colorful culture found off the coast of Georgia, where the descendants of enslaved peoples turn pain into power.

Draw the Circle by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
The hilarious and deeply moving story of a conservative Muslim mother at her wits’ end, a Muslim father who likes to tell jokes and a queer American woman trying to make a good impression on her Indian in-laws. In a story about family and love and the things we do to be together, one immigrant family must come to terms with a child who defies their most basic expectations of what it means to have a daughter. This unique play compassionately brings to life the often-ignored struggle that a family goes through when their child transitions from one gender to another.

Guards at the Taj by Rajiv Joseph (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy)
In 1648 India, two Imperial Guards watch from their post as the sun rises for the first time on the newly-completed Taj Mahal – an event that shakes their respective worlds. When they are ordered to perform an unthinkable task, the aftermath forces them to question the concepts of friendship, beauty and duty… and changes them forever.

Manahatta by Mary Kathryn Nagle (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
A gripping journey from the fur trade of the 1600s to the stock trade of today, Manahatta tells the story of Jane Snake, a brilliant young Native American woman who reconnects with her ancestral homeland, known as Manahatta, when she moves from her home with the Delaware Nation in Anadarko, Oklahoma to New York for a job at a major investment bank in 2008. Jane’s struggle to reconcile her new life with the expectations and traditions of the family she left behind is powerfully interwoven with the heartbreaking history of how the Lenape were forced from their land.

Plot Points In Our Sexual Development by Miranda Rose Hall (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 1 trans man)
Theo and Cecily want to be honest about their sexual histories, but what happens when telling the truth jeopardizes everything? A contemporary queer love story, Plot Points in Our Sexual Development explores gender, intimacy and the dangers of revealing yourself to the person you love.

Prayer for the French Republic by Joshua Harmon (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
This brilliant multigenerational drama explores one family’s relationship to faith, history and safety from a global perspective. In 1944, a Jewish couple in Paris desperately await news of their missing family. More than 70 years later, the couple’s great-grandchildren find themselves facing the same question their ancestors asked: “Are we safe?”

Simona’s Search by Martín Zimmerman (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Simona’s father is an enigma. Curious about his life in Latin America before moving to the United States, Simona obsesses over his secrets as her thoughts and dreams become haunted by the mystery that is his past. A riveting exploration of the bond between fathers and daughters, love and sacrifice, nature and nurture.

Wish You Were Here by Sanaz Toossi (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Set in Iran from 1978 to 1991, this breathtaking and unabashed comedy-drama explores the evolving relationships among a group of five women during the escalation, height and aftermath of the Iranian Revolution.

2025 Broadway Production of John Proctor Is the Villain (Julieta Cervantes)

8. A play with characters your age

While college productions may require you to play an old woman or a father, you’ll likely be cast in roles closer to your biological age after graduating and will need age-appropriate monologues to audition! Making sure you’re reading plays with characters close to your ages helps to organically discover this material and can also be a resonant reading experience, as you may relate to themes and topics more closely.

A Burial Place by Owen Panettieri (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
Three university-aged friends reunite for a night of beers and laughs at their annual summer sleepover. A gruesome discovery out in the woods where they used to play puts a pause on the memory-fest. Their town becomes the epicenter of an investigation, and what’s been found could be connected to one of the boys. Some secrets, no matter how far you push them down, never find a place to rest.

Bleachers by Noah Haidle (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
It’s high school football season in America! While the team plays under the bright lights, four tuba players stuck in the back row wrestle with everything that doesn’t fit into a halftime show: ambition, grief, friendship, faith, love and the strange cruelty of small-town “normal.” Equal parts marching band comedy and raw confession, this funny, ferocious and flexible play is built for schools and young actors to adapt, using your own school’s name, mascot, fight song and rivals.

I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire by Samantha Hurley (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy)
To cope with the absence of her father, neglect from her mother, and ridicule by her classmates, eighth grader Shelby Hinkley has put all of her time and energy into the only thing that matters in 2004: Spiderman. When leading a devout online fan club proves insufficient to her needs, Shelby decides to risk it all for love, kidnap famous actor Tobey Maguire, and marry him in her basement. This Y2K farce is a full-throttle explosion of our para-social relationships and the obsessions that detonate them.

John Proctor Is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
At a high school in a one-stoplight town in Georgia, a group of lively teens navigate young love, sex ed and a few school scandals while studying a canonical play in English class. As the students delve into the American classic, they begin to question the play’s perspective and the validity of naming its hero. With deep wells of passion and biting humor, this dramatic comedy captures a generation mid-transformation, running on pop music, optimism and fury. Alternating between touching, unsettling and bitingly funny moments, these teens discover that their future is not bound by the past and that they have the power to change it all by writing their own coming-of-age story. Nominated for seven 2025 Tony Awards and set in 2018 in rural Georgia, this play speaks to the now for teenage girls (and those whose inner teen needs the healing power of feminine rage).

Our Dear Dead Drug Lord by Alexis Scheer (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
A gang of teenage girls gathers in an abandoned treehouse to summon the ghost of Pablo Escobar. Are they messing with the actual spirit of the infamous cartel kingpin? Or are they really just messing with each other? A roller coaster ride through the danger and damage of girlhood – the teenage wasteland – has never been so much twisted fun.

The Winter Guard Play by Avery Deutsch (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy)
Winter guard is NOT color guard. Forget the football, forget the pom poms. In Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, a high school winter guard team attempts to choreograph a routine on the topic of global warming. A play about catching flags, catching each other, and realizing the grown-ups aren’t going to save you.

The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Left quad. Right quad. Lunge. A girls indoor soccer team warms up. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wages tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of adolescent warriors. A portrait of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for nine American girls who just want to score some goals.

For more plays with roles you can play in this season of life (for monologues, scenes or in production), see our Plays Featuring Teenagers in the US or the UK.

2015 Roundabout Theatre Company Production of The Humans (Joan Marcus)

9. A play that’s been adapted to film or television – and then compare!

Sometimes, playwrights take their plays from the stage to the screen and even work directly on the adaptation. Exercising your mind by comparing the same story through two mediums can teach you a lot about what is effective for each and across both!

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express adapted by Ken Ludwig (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 5w, 5m)
Ken Ludwig’s clever adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic boasts all the glamour, intrigue and suspense of Dame Agatha’s celebrated novel, with a healthy dose of humor to quicken the pace. Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. An American tycoon lies dead in his compartment, stabbed eight times, his door locked from the inside. Isolated and with a killer in their midst, the passengers rely on detective Hercule Poirot to identify the murderer – before another victim is taken.

August: Osage County by Tracy Letts (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 6w, 6m, 1 girl)
When the Weston family unexpectedly reunites after their father disappears, their Oklahoman family homestead explodes in a maelstrom of repressed truths and unsettling secrets. Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning masterpiece unflinchingly – and uproariously – exposes the dark side of the Midwestern American family. It was adapted into a film in 2013 by the playwright himself, so comparing and contrasting can be an especially fruitful exercise here.

August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson by August Wilson (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama)
In 1936, Boy Willie arrives in Pittsburgh from the South in a battered truck loaded with watermelons to sell. He wants to sell a piano that has great importance to his family, but he shares ownership with his sister Berniece, and the piano sits in her living room. Berniece has already rejected several offers, because the antique piano is covered with beautiful carvings detailing the family’s rise from slavery. Boy Willie argues that the past is past, but Berniece proves to be more formidable than he anticipated.

Elemeno Pea by Molly Smith Metzler (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy)
In May of 2025, playwright Molly Smith Metzler adapted this play to television with the Netflix miniseries Sirens. In both versions, Devon visits her sister Simone for an end-of-summer fest on Martha’s Vineyard, and she finds her little sister changed beyond recognition. As personal assistant to wealthy and demanding trophy wife Michaela Kell, Simone enjoys a lavish beachfront lifestyle that these girls never could have imagined growing up in blue-collar Buffalo… but is all this luxury free of cost? Sisters square off in this keenly-observed comedy about ambition, regret and the choices that shape us.

Is God Is by Aleshea Harris (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
Is God Is is a modern myth about twin sisters who sojourn from the Dirty South to the California desert to exact righteous revenge. Winner of the 2016 Relentless Award, Aleshea Harris collides the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western, and Afropunk in this darkly funny and unapologetic play.

The History Boys by Alan Bennett (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy)
An unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys are in pursuit of sex, sport and a place at a good university – in that order. In all their efforts, they are helped and hindered by their English teacher, who seeks to broaden their horizons in sometimes undefined ways, and a young history teacher who questions the methods and aim of their schooling. With gentle wit and pitch-perfect command of character, this show questions the nature of history, how it is taught and the purpose of education today.

The Humans by Stephen Karam (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy)
Breaking with tradition, Erik Blake has brought his Pennsylvania family to celebrate Thanksgiving at his daughter’s apartment in lower Manhattan. As darkness falls outside the ramshackle pre-war duplex, eerie things start to go bump in the night and the hearts and horrors of the Blake clan are exposed.

For more shows adapted to the silver screen, peruse the collections As Seen on TV (US/UK) and Stage on Screen: Shows Adapted to Film (US/UK).

BONUS POINTS:

Two more categories that can be fun and formative to read:

ONE: A play written by an author from your home city, state and/or country, to support your local artists!

TWO: A musical on the page, to see what themes and motifs stick out to you when considering the text! Our recommendations: try Fun Home (US/UK), Hadestown (US/UK) or Ernxst, Or the Importance of Being (US/UK) by Kait Kerrigan, Bree Lowdermilk and Justin Elizabeth Sayre, adapted from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.