From uproarious comedies about middle-aged best friends to heartbreaking dramas about pain and loss, these plays with all-female casts shatter stereotypes and showcase women’s narratives. Celebrate the strength, complexity and diversity of women on stage with these compelling plays, both classic and contemporary.
Always a Bridesmaid by Jones Hope Wooten
In this hilarious comedic romp, four friends have sworn to keep the promise they made on the night of their Senior Prom: to be in each other’s weddings… no matter what. More than 30 years later, these Southern friends-for-life are still making “the long walk” for each other, determined to honor that vow. Libby Ruth, the hopeful romantic with the perfect marriage, believes – in spite of all evidence to the contrary – that her friends can find the very same happiness. Headstrong Deedra’s “rock-solid” union hangs by a thread. Monette, flashy, high-spirited and self-involved, continues to test her friends’ love and patience with all-too-frequent trips down the aisle. And salt-of-the-earth, tree-hugging Charlie discovers – the hard way – that marital bliss is not the end of her rainbow and panics in outrageous style when the opportunity presents itself. Hop on this marriage-go-round for a laugh-out-loud journey with these beleaguered bridesmaids as they navigate the choppy waters of love and matrimony.
anthropology by Lauren Gunderson
Merril has been spending more time with her sister Angie lately, but she’s not ready for anyone to know about it. At least, not until she’s ready to explain that Angie is an AI creation she developed to cope with her sister’s disappearance and death. When virtual Angie offers the possibility that real Angie might be still alive, Merril does everything she can to work with her creation to find her sister. But as the search continues, it becomes less clear whether an AI creation that Merril programmed to help her might have developed motives of its own.
Blackademics by Idris Goodwin
There’s something strange about the trendy new restaurant in town. When Ann and Rachelle meet there for dinner, there’s already tension in the friendship they’ve built on their common experience navigating academia as Black women: While Ann just got tenure at her tony liberal arts college, Rachelle’s struggling to find her place at the less prestigious state university. So at first it’s easy to overlook odd things like the single water glass they’re offered, or the mysterious server who keeps assigning points to their conversational gambits. But as the hunger sets in, the two professors find themselves the unknowing stars of an absurdist dinner theatre performance of Black plight. Somebody’s got to get the first bite, after all. A sharp, surreal satire about who gets a place at the table.
Blown Youth by Dipika Guha
An aspiring actress and founder of a feminist commune, Celia wants one thing: to play a great role. But despite her sophisticated education and commitment to helping women, Celia, like Hamlet before her, cannot act. Still, it seems her consciousness doesn’t lie only inside herself. It seeds and sprouts amidst her 21st-century kinships: her friends. Inspired by Shakespeare and set in those hazy post-college years, Blown Youth examines what happens to the universe when a woman is at its center.
Flex by Candrice Jones
The pressure is on for the 1998 Lady Train high school basketball team – on top of a battle to bring home the championship trophy, it is also college scouting season. But the team’s performance on the court is tested as it ruptures under the weight of its own infighting, and the once-tight players begin to focus on their individual futures. What does it mean to be a Black girl on the brink of freedom and womanhood in a small town in the South? Does honoring your own wants mean sacrificing your friends, family and team? This funny and frank play about getting a full-court press from life will have audiences cheering.
Float by Patricia Kane
The industrious members of the Budapest Women’s Club (pronounced “Bu-DAP-est”) come together for an annual tradition: the crafting of the holiday parade float. But under the surface of this pleasant gathering, the women find themselves grappling with sexuality, betrayal and their own hard and fast notions of right and wrong. In this ode to the complicated undercurrents of Midwestern morality, five women – Marty, Luce, Char, Arletta and Doodee – face life’s tests with laughter, love and a lot of fake snow.
Harriet Tubman: An American Moses by Gay Monteverde
When a storyteller summons Harriet Tubman from the past, one of America’s greatest heroines offers to divulge the details of her extraordinary life. As the storyteller portrays the diverse characters from her past, from Frederick Douglas to plantation owners, Harriet relives her humble beginnings with her family through the end of the Civil War. Though Tubman was widely known for her unimaginable feats of courage, this play also explores the finer details of her life, evoking her more nuanced messages of hope and faith in other people.
Jar the Floor by Cheryl L. West
A quartet of Black women spanning four generations makes up this heartwarming dramatic comedy. The four, plus the white woman friend of the youngest, come together to celebrate the matriarch’s 90th birthday. It’s a wild party, one that is a lovable lunatic glance at the exhilarating challenge of growing old amidst the exasperating trials of growing up.
Knickers! by Sarah Quick
The paper mill that long propped up the economy of Elliston Falls has been shut down, sending the town spiralling into an economic depression. When a chipper but overwhelmed tourism officer arrives to lend a hand, she discovers an unlikely business partnership in the three brassy friends that make up the local chapter of Weight Watchers. Could the ladies’ plan for a custom underwear business (complete with giant knickers as a roadside attraction) really be the town’s salvation? This hilariously irreverent comedy celebrates determination, entrepreneurial spirit and the willingness to bear it all.
Love, Loss and What I Wore by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron, based on the book by Ilene Beckerman
This play of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory covers all the important subjects: mothers, prom dresses, mothers, buying bras, mothers, hating purses and why we only wear black. Based on the bestselling book by Ilene Beckerman.
LUCY by Erica Schmidt
On paper, Ashling is the perfect person to take care of Mary’s young children: a confident, highly qualified childcare professional with a sunny disposition and lots of experience. But from the moment Mary hires her, something starts to feel just a little off. Is Ashling as wonderful as she seems? Is the misunderstanding all in Mary’s overworked, stressed-out, sleep-deprived mind? Surely she hasn’t welcomed someone unstable into her home, has she? Lucy is a comedic thriller about what happens when you don’t trust the person who holds the key to your front door.
Mac Beth adapted by Erica Schmidt, from Macbeth by William Shakespeare
After school, seven teenage girls convene in an abandoned lot to perform a play. They drop their backpacks, transform their uniforms, and dive into a DIY retelling of Macbeth. As the girls conjure kings, warriors and witches, Shakespeare’s bloody tale seeps into their reality. Mac Beth recontextualizes a classic text to expose the ferocity of adolescence and the intoxicating power of collective fantasy.
Mary Gets Hers by Emma Horwitz
It’s 950 AD (give or take a few years) and eight-year-old Mary has just lost her parents to a plague that has been turning everyone into foam. She’s kidnapped by a hermit, Abraham, who takes her to a monastery and vows to shield her from the world, with the help of his pious friend Ephraim. After years locked away in a cell-inside-a-cell, Mary escapes her heavily restricted life and runs away to an inn and a life of indulgence. But the innkeeper has plans for Mary’s future, and soon, she again finds herself trapped. Good thing Abraham vowed to do whatever it took to rescue her… A quirky, earthy, hilarious play about how everyone makes their own way to love and self-knowledge.
Marys Seacole by Jackie Sibblies Drury
Born in 1805 Jamaica, Mary Seacole is determined to live an extraordinary life. As she travels across oceans and centuries, through a Jamaican hospital, a Crimean battlefront, a contemporary nursing home, and everywhere in between, Mary moves through life with Herculean fortitude. But as her brazen spirit meets historical reality, Mary’s world explodes, splitting, multiplying and redefining her narrative. Based on the life of the famous nurse and entrepreneur, Marys Seacole is an examination of what it means to be a woman paid to care.
Men on Boats by Jaclyn Backhaus
Ten explorers. Four boats. One Grand Canyon. Men on Boats is the true(ish) history of an 1869 expedition, when a one-armed captain and a crew of insane yet loyal volunteers set out to chart the course of the Colorado River.
Morning Sun by Simon Stephens
In Greenwich Village a generation or so ago, the city is alive. Joni Mitchell sings, friends and lovers come and go, and the regulars change at the White Horse Tavern. As fifty years pass, one woman’s life is revealed in all its complexity, mystery and possibility in this enthralling piece about mothers and daughters.
O’Keeffe! by Lucinda McDermott
Georgia O’Keeffe has summoned an audience to help answer the question, “Was it me or was it Stieglitz?” We journey with O’Keeffe from 1915, when she tears up her work to date and starts over in black and white to discover her own style. She revisits key moments in her life to reveal hidden truths, but the shadow of manager and husband Alfred Stieglitz looms heavy over her. Was it his nude photographs of her that enticed the art world to her, or was it her own excellence of craft? Would she have been noticed if he hadn’t exhibited her? Georgia rejects claims by the male-dominated art world about what drives her art, but when a Stieglitz affair gets too intense and a very public commission collapses, her world falls apart. Georgia rallies, determined to survive and paint again, but some difficult decisions must be made. In the end, the truth that lies deep in Georgia’s heart is revealed – and it’s as devastating as it is honest. A revealing drama about the beloved and complex American icon.
School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh
Paulina, the reigning queen bee at Ghana’s most exclusive boarding school, has her sights set on the Miss Global Universe pageant. But the arrival of Ericka, a new student with undeniable talent and beauty, captures the attention of the pageant recruiter – and Paulina’s hive-minded friends. This buoyant and biting comedy explores the universal similarities (and glaring differences) facing teenage girls across the globe.
Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling
All the ladies who are “anybody” in Chinquapin, Louisiana come to Truvy’s beauty salon to have their hair done. Helped by her eager new assistant, Annelle (who is not sure whether or not she is still married), the outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy dispenses shampoo and free advice to the town’s rich curmudgeon, Ouiser, (“I’m not crazy, I’ve just been in a bad mood for forty years”), an eccentric millionaire; Miss Clairee, who has a raging sweet tooth; and the local social leader, M’Lynn, whose daughter, Shelby (the prettiest girl in town), is about to marry a “good ole boy.”
Filled with hilarious repartee and several acerbic verbal collisions, the comedy moves toward tragedy when, in the second act, the spunky Shelby (who is a diabetic) risks her life to go through with a dangerous pregnancy. Confronted with the harshness of mortality, the others draw together to find strength – and love – in the wake of tragedy.
The Apiary by Kate Douglas
It’s 22 years in the future, and honeybees are nearly extinct, except for those kept alive inside of labs. Zora is overqualified for her new job at one of these labs, but she’s there because she loves bees – or what is left of them. Her stressed supervisor, Gwen, has learned to keep her head and budget down so her research doesn’t get discontinued. Zora, however, doesn’t mind spending her own time and money to try to rehabilitate the bee population. When an unfortunate incident leads to a boost in the bees’ numbers, Zora and her coworker Pilar have to decide just how far they’re willing to go to keep the population growing. An unsettling and sharp-witted cautionary tale, The Apiary warns that the key to protecting each other and the planet is right in front of us, if only we would listen.
The Half-Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson
In 1911, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements radium and polonium. By 1912, she was the object of ruthless gossip over an alleged affair with the married Frenchman Paul Langevin, all but erasing her achievements from public memory. Weakened and demoralized by the press lambasting her as a “foreign” Jewish temptress and a homewrecking traitor, Marie agrees to join her friend and colleague Hertha Ayrton, an electromechanical engineer and suffragette, at her summer home in England. The Half-Life of Marie Curie revels in the power of female friendship as it explores the relationship between these two brilliant women, each of whom is a mother, a widow and a fearless champion of scientific inquiry.
The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca, Adapted by Nelly E. Cuellar-Garcia
When her husband dies, Bernarda Alba seeks to protect her four daughters the only way she knows how: by confining them all to their family ranch for eight years of mourning. But where the fierce matriarch sees a shelter from the men circling their fortune like wolves, her daughters see a prison, and the only way out is marriage. Headstrong Adela longs for Pepe El Romano, a man who has been chosen for her older sister Angustias, and turns to a chorus of women for prophecy and comfort as she makes a series of fatal decisions. As the world shifts beneath them, Bernarda Alba and her daughters search for a foothold, but will they turn against each other? This taut and lyrical adaptation of The House of Bernard Alba brings Federico Garcia Lorca’s classic parable of women and power to life in a rush of fans and castanets.
The House That Will Not Stand by Marcus Gardley
In early 19th-century New Orleans, a widowed mother, Beartrice, struggles to manage her headstrong daughters after the death of her second husband. But as the matriarch takes her place as head of the household, a more ominous transfer of power transpires in the region. The French-owned Louisiana Territory is about to be acquired by the United States, threatening the liberty of the free people of color residing on the land. A gripping examination of intersecting captivities, The House That Will Not Stand follows four women in mourning as they look ahead to an uncertain and haunting future.
The Most Massive Woman Wins by Madeleine George
Challenging, brutal and hilarious, this powerful play features four women of various shapes and sizes sitting in the waiting room of a liposuction clinic as they explore their perceptions of body image. The women reveal their experiences dealing with their weight issues through monologues, short scenes and even schoolyard rhymes. From painful childhood memories to frustrations with the opposite sex, these experiences both haunt and empower these women as they imagine their way to a new vision of themselves as beautiful and whole.
The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson
Four beautiful, badass women lose their heads in this irreverent, girl-powered comedy set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat and try to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793 Paris. This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world. It’s a true story. Or total fiction. Or a play about a play. Or a raucous resurrection… that ends in a song and a scaffold.
The Second-to-Last Chance Ladies League by Jones Hope Wooten
In this delightful and uproarious sequel to Always a Bridesmaid, four best friends – Libby Ruth, Deedra, Monette and Charlie – each yearning to change her life before it’s too late, return to their beloved Laurelton Oaks, a wedding venue they know all too well. With Deedra’s purchase of the stately venue, the others rally around her, and the business is ingeniously reimagined as “Occasionally Yours,” an events center for all kinds of fresh, new celebratory gatherings. With these women so involved in each other’s lives, what could possibly go wrong? Basically, almost everything, what with Monette – flashy, vivacious and self-involved – careening through a comic minefield of yet another divorce; salt-of-the-earth, tree-hugging Charlie struggling to survive her late-arriving mid-life crisis; and Libby Ruth – sweet, guileless but absolutely nobody’s fool – choosing to return to college while finding herself overwhelmed by the rebirth of her husband’s libido. Meanwhile, headstrong Deedra is fending off the eagle-eyed control issues of the unflappable Sedalia Ellicott, the former owner, who refuses to relinquish the reins and exit gracefully. In the course of one ferociously funny year, they joyfully throw themselves into hosting all manner of events – baby showers, bachelorette parties, memorial services – where everything that can go awry does. They are even compelled to participate in, yes, another last-minute, improbable wedding.
The Taming by Lauren Gunderson
Tweetering, pandashrews, and undying giddiness for James Madison – what else could you expect to find at a Miss America pageant? In this hilarious, raucous, all-female “power-play” inspired by Shakespeare’s Shrew, contestant Katherine has political aspirations to match her beauty pageant ambitions. All she needs to revolutionize the American government is the help of one ultra-conservative senator’s aide on the cusp of a career breakthrough, and one bleeding-heart liberal blogger who will do anything for her cause. Well, that and a semi-historically-accurate ether trip. Here’s lookin’ at you, America.
The Women by Clare Boothe Luce
In Claire Boothe Luce’s classic 1936 comedy of manners, a group of Manhattan socialites gossip, scheme and jockey for position in their sheltered world of privilege. A commentary on the pampered lives and power struggles of New York society women, Luce’s groundbreaking and very funny play features a large, all-female cast and a host of brilliant zingers and quotable one-liners.
Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein
A collage of interrelated scenes, Wasserstein’s dramatic comedy begins with a reunion, six years after graduation, of five close friends and classmates at Mount Holyoke College. The six women compare notes on their activities since leaving school and then, in a series of flashbacks, revisit the college-era events – some funny, some touching, some bitingly cynical – that helped to shape them. Their varied reactions to the staid, sheltered and often anachronistic university environment shape the play, raising questions about education, adulthood, gender and friendship.
Women Playing Hamlet by William Missouri Downs
Hamlet‘s a challenge for any actor, but when Jessica is cast as the titular character in a New York production, it sends her into an existential tailspin. It doesn’t help that her acting coach is borderline abusive, or that every Starbucks barista with an MFA tells her she’s too young for the role. Or that she’s somehow managed to make Sir Patrick Stewart her nemesis. Not to mention the fact that she’s a woman. How can Jessica figure out “to be or not to be” when she can’t even figure out herself? Featuring an all-female cast performing multiple roles, Woman Playing Hamlet is rip-roaring fun for Shakespeare fans and haters alike.
For more great plays and musicals, visit BroadwayLicensing.com.
Real Pleasures to Perform: Plays Inspired by True Events
From inspiring tales of courage and morality, to somber investigations of the depths to which humanity can sink, reality has often formed the basis of some of Broadway’s greatest theatrical works.
Newly Available for Licensing – November 2025 (US)
We’re grateful to say that new theatre is headed your way! Check out these titles, newly available for licensing in November from Concord Theatricals in the US.
Newly Available for Licensing – November 2025 (UK)
We’re thankful for new theatre! Check out these titles that are newly available for licensing in November from Concord Theatricals in the UK.