Two-Woman Plays

The interpersonal relationship between women creates a unique theatrical dynamic. Here’s a dynamic array of Concord Theatricals two-handers featuring a pair of women.

’Night, Mother by Marsha Norman (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and a Drama Desk award, this eloquent, enthralling and ultimately shattering play explores the final hour in the life of a young woman who has decided that life is no longer worth living. 

A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking by John Ford Noonan and Loudon Wainwright III (US)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w)
This two-character comedy takes place in suburban Westchester County, New York kitchen of Maude Mix, who is having a tough day: Her husband is off on a weekend spree with his secretary, and she can’t get rid of the pesky neighbor who has just moved up from Texas. Hannah Mae Bindler badgers Maude into friendship, and the two eventually join forces against their errant and erring husbands..

Airswimming by Charlotte Jones (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
Set in 1920s England, Airswimming is based on a true story of two women (Miss Kitson and Miss Baker), who have been incarcerated in a hospital for the “criminally insane” for having borne illegitimate children. We follow these two women as they survive the silence of incarceration.

Bette & Joan by Anton Burge (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w)
Once grande dames of Hollywood, by 1962, arch rivals Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were in danger of becoming has-beens. Then an opportunity comes along: to appear together in a new movie called Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? While Joan manages her anxiety by lacing her Pepsi with vodka and signing photographs for her beloved fans, Bette chain-smokes and muses on her love life, and her ability to pick a decent script, never a decent man.

Breadcrumbs by Jennifer Haley (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
A reclusive fiction writer diagnosed with dementia must depend upon a troubled young caretaker to complete her autobiography. In the process of doing this, a tragedy is unearthed that shatters their notions of language, loneliness and essential self.

Bright Half Life by Tanya Barfield (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
This powerful two-hander is a moving love story that spans decades in an instant – from marriage, children, skydiving and the infinite moments that make a life together. 

Collected Stories by Donald Margulies (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
Based on the real-life conflict between poet Stephen Spender and novelist David Leavitt, this thought-provoking drama explores the emotional and legal question of an author’s right to create art based on another person’s life story. The play’s Broadway production featured Linda Lavin and Sarah Paulson.

Fin & Euba by Audrey Cefaly (US/UK)
(Short Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w)
Winner of over a dozen festivals, including the 2006 Strawberry One-Act Festival, this touching two-hander centers on two women of any age or ethnicity as they sit on the porch, watching the cars go by… drinking, bitching and planning their escape.

Gidion’s Knot by Johnna Adams (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
Over the course of a parent/teacher conference, a grieving mother and an emotionally overwhelmed primary school teacher have a fraught conversation about the tragic suicide of the mother’s son, Gidion. 

Going to St. Ives by Lee Blessing (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
When the mother of an African dictator visits an English doctor to obtain treatment for her failing eyesight, both women fight for their ideals, as one of them keeps her motivation a secret. A tense, provocative and politically charged two-hander.  

Grace & Glorie by Tom Ziegler (US)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w)
Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Grace, a feisty 90-year-old cancer patient, has checked herself out of the hospital and returned to her beloved cottage to die alone. The relationship between Grace and her volunteer hospice worker creates an enlightened perspective on values and life’s highs and lows.

Having Our Say, The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years by Emily Mann (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
Based on the acclaimed book of the same title, Having Our Say is a remarkable journey through the last hundred years of our nation’s history through the eyes of two sisters: 103-year-old Sadie Delany and 101-year-old Bessie Delany. As these women journey back through the generations, they recount a fascinating series of events and anecdotes drawn from their rich family history and careers as pioneering African-American professionals. Their story is not simply Black history or women’s history; it is our history.

In the Continuum by Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
In the Continuum puts a human face on the devastating impact of AIDS in Africa and America through the lives of two unforgettably courageous women. Living worlds apart, one in South Central L.A. and the other in Zimbabwe, each experiences a kaleidoscopic weekend of life-changing revelations in this story of parallel denials and self-discoveries.

Kin by Max Dickins (US/UK)
(Short Play, Dark Comedy / 2w)
Two estranged sisters meet after 20 years. In a remote cottage over a single night they bury the hatchet. As their dying father lies in the room next door, they’re forced to confront who they were and who they’ve become. When the only person they have left in common disappears, is their relationship worth saving?

Marie and Rosetta by George Brant (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w)
Marie and Rosetta chronicles music pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s first rehearsal with a young protégé, Marie Knight, as they prepare to embark on a tour that would establish them as one of the great duos in musical history.

Mary & Myra by Catherine Filloux (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
In the summer of 1875, lawyer Myra Bradwell visits her friend Mary Todd Lincoln in an insane asylum. As they grapple with freedom, womanhood and the past, Myra’s motives and Mary’s sanity are both up for debate. 

Matt & Ben by Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w)
Matt & Ben tells the story that leads to the movie Good Will Hunting through the lens of two of Hollywood’s future golden boys – as played by women in this play. When the film’s screenplay drops mysteriously from the heavens, the boys realize they’re being tested by a Higher Power.

N/A by Mario Correa (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w)
Inspired by real people and events, N/A is a whip-smart battle of wills – and wits – between N, the first woman Speaker of the House, and A, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. This riveting two-hander illuminates the person whom many consider the most powerful woman in American history… and the once-in-a-generation political talent who defied her.

No One Is Forgotten by Winter Miller (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
Lali and Beng are hostages. No one knows where they’ve been taken or if they’re alive. Or maybe their story has been broadcast to the world? Winter Miller’s compelling and often funny two-hander is a story about intimacy, surrender and the will to live for someone else.

Sancocho by Christin Eve Cato (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w)
As they prepare a beloved family recipe, Puerto Rican sisters Renata and Caridad clash over cultural divides, unearth old wounds and reveal long-buried secrets. As Caridad’s sancocho bubbles on the stove, will the two sisters reconcile their past resentments to face their uncertain futures – together?

SHEWOLVES by Sarah Middleton (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w)
Ever thought you should run the world, even though you’re ‘only 14 and a girl’? Priya and Lou have. And they’re ready to bite back against any adult who doubts them. The pair embarks on a covert expedition into the wild. An uplifting, funny and empowering play about forging friendships when you’re a bit weird, the power of hope and the smartness of teens.

Shutter Sisters by Jiréh Breon Holder (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w)
This heartfelt dramedy tells the story of two women living parallel lives. A white woman named Michael struggles with strained family relationships at her adopted mother’s funeral, while a Black woman named Mykal navigates a challenge of her own: becoming an empty nester. A surrealist journey through womanhood, identity and what it means to belong.

Single Black Female by Lisa B. Thompson (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy /2w)
Single Black Female explores the lives of thirty-something African American middle-class women in urban America as they search for love, clothing and dignity in a world that fails to recognize them amongst a parade of stereotypical images. SBF 1, an English literature professor, and SBF 2, a corporate lawyer, keep each other balanced as they face fears of rejection and hopes for romance – and reminisce about black girlhood wounds.

Summer, 1976 by David Auburn (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
A deeply moving, tenderly insightful play about friendship, memory, and the small moments that can change the course of our lives forever. Over one fateful summer, an unlikely friendship develops between Diana, a fiercely iconoclastic artist and single mom, and Alice, a free-spirited yet naive young housewife. As the Bicentennial is celebrated across the country, these two young women in Ohio help each other discover their own independence. 

The Gulf by Audrey Cefaly (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w)
The divide between Kendra and Betty mimics the very world that devours them: a vast and polarizing abyss. On a quiet summer evening, somewhere down in the Alabama Delta, they troll the flats looking for redfish. At some point, this routine fishing excursion takes a violent turn. Also available for licensing: The Gulf (One-Act Version) (US/UK)

The Half-Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
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. Weakened and demoralized by the press, Marie agrees to join her friend and colleague Hertha Ayrton, an electro-mechanical engineer and suffragette, at her summer home in England. The Half-Life of Marie Curie revels in the power of friendship between these two brilliant women, both of whom are mothers, widows and fearless champions of scientific inquiry. 

The How and the Why by Sarah Treem (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
Evolution and emotion collide in Sarah Treem’s thought-provoking and sharp play about science, family and survival of the fittest. On the eve of a prestigious conference, an up-and-coming evolutionary biologist wrestles for the truth with an established leader in the field. This intimate and keenly perceptive play explores the difficult choices faced by women of every generation.

The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama /2w)
Zoe, a Black student at a liberal arts college, is called into her white professor’s office to discuss her paper about slavery’s effect on the American Revolution. What begins as a polite clash in perspectives explodes into an urgent debate about race, history and power.

The Roommate by Jen Silverman (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy / 2w)
Sharon, in her mid-fifties, is recently divorced and needs a roommate to share her Iowa home. Robyn, also in her mid-fifties, needs a place to hide and a chance to start over. This dark comedy examines what it takes to re-route your life – and what happens when the wheels come off.

The Star Quilter by William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
When Luanne asks Mona, a member of the Assiniboine tribe, to make a star quilt for a senator, Mona agrees. But the gift’s meaning is lost on its buyer. The Star Quilter explores the effect of consumerism on indigenous populations, asking whether integrity is more valuable than money.

Tomorrow Game by Brandy N. Carie (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
Bell and Roe live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is so far gone that they don’t even remember a time when there were grocery stores, safe drinking water or 911. They live in isolation, until they happen to meet. Their friendship is tested when Bell engages Roe in a game.

Truth Be Told by William Cameron (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
A year after a workplace shooting takes the lives of 14 people, including her son Julian, grief-stricken Kathleen seeks to convince a skeptical journalist that Julian was framed for the incident. At a time in our history when the truth is under attack on a daily basis, Truth Be Told explores the nature of objective truth and the ways in which we manipulate and distort it to serve our own ends.

Vita & Virginia by Eileen Atkins (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama /2w)
Writer-actress Eileen Atkins starred in London’s West End with Penelope Wilton and off-Broadway with Vanessa Redgrave in her adaptation of the correspondence of kindred spirits Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.

What Is the Cause of Thunder? by Noah Haidle (US)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w)
After 27 years on the same soap opera, Ada is starting to confuse her art and her life. But after so many years of acting, her art is her life. Haidle’s poignant comedy brings us the hilarity of daytime drama alongside the harsher, but often equally funny, realities of life.

Yard Gal by Rebecca Prichard (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w)
Marie and Boo, two teenage girlfriends, pass difficult days in inner city London by scheming, thieving and raving with their gang of girls. But will their shared experience hold them together or break them apart? Uncompromising in its language and treatment of London gang life, Yard Gal is a finely drawn picture of life on the edge.

For more great plays and musicals featuring women, visit Concord Theatricals in the US or UK.