Women Across Generations: Shows Featuring Female Characters of All Ages

Looking for theatre that features female characters of many ages? Explore this group of plays and musicals in which younger and older women interact – as mothers and daughters, mentors and students, or friends and colleagues. Each show offers complex and dynamic roles for women, no matter their age. Take a look and decide which show best fits the women in your company!

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 7m, 1 boy)
Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking drama, a searing and timeless portrait of a family on Chicago’s South Side, is an American classic. 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.

Agnes of God by John Pielmeier (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w)
In this taut, compelling three-character drama, Dr. Martha Livingstone, a court-appointed psychiatrist, is summoned to a convent to assess the sanity of a novice accused of murdering her newborn. Miriam Ruth, the Mother Superior, determinedly keeps young Agnes from the doctor, further arousing Livingstone’s suspicions. Who killed the infant, and who fathered the tiny victim? Livingstone’s questions force all three women to reexamine the meaning of faith and the power of love, leading to a dramatic climax.

Anastasia: The Musical by Terrence McNally, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 4w, 5m, 1 girl + ensemble)
This dazzling show transports its audience from the twilight of the Russian Empire to the euphoria of Paris in the 1920s, as a brave young woman sets out to discover the mystery of her past. Pursued by a ruthless Soviet officer determined to silence her, Anya enlists the aid of a dashing con man and a lovable ex-aristocrat. Together, they embark on an epic adventure to help her find home, love and family.

Anne of Green Gables – The Musical by Donald Harron, Norman Campbell and L.M. Montgomery (US)
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 17w, 12m)
Based on the beloved novel by L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables – The Musical follows the precocious and imaginative Anne Shirley as she captures the hearts and minds of her newfound family and neighbors in the small farming community of Avonlea – simply by virtue of her own pluck and personality. From the stern spinster Marrila Cuthbert to schoolteacher Miss Muriel Stacy to girls like the sweet Diana Barry and the titular fiesty Anne, there is a wealth of roles for women of all ages to explore onstage in this theatrical adaptation of the cherished novel.

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/UK),  who was infamously executed for witchcraft in 1692 – but things have changed for women since then, haven’t they? From the strong-willed Becky to her teenage granddaughter Gail to a Witch to an art historian named Shelby, women of all ages (and centuries) bring this bracing and beguiling play to life.

Bernarda Alba by Michael John LaChiusa (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 10w)
Bernarda Alba tells the tale of a powerful matriarch who imposes a strict rule on her household following her second husband’s funeral: “Not a breath of outside air is going to enter this house. It’s going to feel like we’ve bricked up the doors and windows,” she proclaims. Bernarda’s five daughters, however, struggle with her cold wishes. The girls’ dreams and desires challenge their mother’s harsh rules, showing a complicated generational divide through which the outside world begins to slowly permeate their isolated existence.

Bothered and Bewildered by Gail Young (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 5w, 3m)
As her family struggles to come to terms with her Alzheimer’s, Irene blurs reality with her passion for romantic literature. She spends hours discussing how best to write her “memory book” with her imaginary friend and favorite author Barbara Cartland (the deceased, world-famous romantic novelist), disclosing long-kept family secrets that she would never divulge to her daughters, Louise and Beth. This tragicomedy is about memory, loss, secrets and – above all – love and showcases end-of-life through the eyes of both the person experiencing it and the children they will leave behind.

Consumed by Karis Kelly (UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 1 girl)
Winner of the Women’s Prize for the Playwriting 2022, Karis Kelly’s play is a dark and twisted comedy of dysfunctional family dynamics, generational trauma and national boundaries. There’s a 90th birthday party that no one seems to want that also unites four generations of Northern Irish women under one roof. In this house full of hungry ghosts with more than one skeleton in the closet, you’ll want to turn off your phones at dinner.

cullud wattah by Erika Dickerson-Despenza (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w)
Part meditation/call to action, part domestic drama, cullud wattah 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. With characters ranging from 9 years old to 63 and embodying the spectrum of mothers, daughters, aunts and sisters, cullud wattah offers a multidimensional, poetic look at crisis’ effect on family.

Curtain Up! by Peter Quilter (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 5w)
Based on the author’s earlier Respecting Your Piers, this comedy is the hilarious story of five women who inherit equal shares in a dilapidated theater and plan to bring it back to life. They try various fundraising schemes, but their most ambitious is to hold a concert featuring local talent and a star who agrees to appear for no fee! However, their plans go awry and it’s a race to keep their audience from guessing the truth of the matter. Mothers, daughters and grandmothers unite in this fast-paced and very funny comedy.

Eleemosynary by Lee Blessing (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w)
Staged with utmost simplicity using platforms and a few props, Eleemosynary probes into the delicate relationship of three singular women: the grandmother, Dorothea, who has sought to assert her independence through strong-willed eccentricity; her brilliant daughter, Artie, who has fled the stifling domination of her mother; and Artie’s daughter, Echo, a child of exceptional intellect – and sensitivity – whom Artie has abandoned to an upbringing by Dorothea. A funny and poignant play with witty and carefully wrought dialogue that actors will want to explore.

English by Sanaz Toossi (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 4w, 1m)
Two words, “English Only,” is the mantra that rules one classroom in Iran, where four adult students prepare for the TOEFL – Test of English as a Foreign Language. It’s 2008, and four Iranians of various ages – from the youngest at 18 to the oldest at 54 – assemble triweekly in a TOEFL class in Karaj, Iran. In this Pulitzer Prize-winning play, they translate Ricky Martin and endure major preposition confusion as well as discover how to be funny in English and ponder what they will lose in the process.

Familiar by Danai Gurira (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 5w, 3m)
Marvelous and Donald, Zimbabwean emigrants in Minnesota, are preparing for the marriage of their eldest daughter, Tendi. They have gracefully blended Zimbabwean culture alongside their American culture, but their house is turned upside down when Marvelous’s sister comes from Zimbabwe to perform a very traditional wedding ceremony in which the groom barters for the bride. Tensions flare and identities clash as the family’s fabric slowly unravels, and they are forced to take a hard look at who they truly are.

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 7w)
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.

Gee’s Bend by Elizabeth Gregory Wilder (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 1m)
This drama depicts focuses on the turbulent history of African-Americans in the 20th century through a single family in the community of Gee’s Bend, AL, now famous for the beautiful quilts created by the women that grew up there. Gospel songs weave in and out of this hauntingly beautiful work with roles ranging from grandmother to granddaughter.

Going to a Place Where You Already Are by Bekah Brunstetter (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w, 3m)
Is there a heaven? Joe says no. His wife, Roberta, has always claimed to agree. But lately she’s beginning to wonder, especially having reached the age when funerals are more frequent than weddings. Their granddaughter, Ellie, doesn’t have time in her own life to ponder the afterlife. But when mortality confronts them, her grandmother’s claim to have gone to heaven and back doesn’t sound so crazy after all. With thoughtful storytelling and quiet wit, Brunstetter’s play looks at beginnings, endings – and an enigmatic angel.

Goldie, Max & Milk by Karen Hartman (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 4w, 1m)
It’s 2009; Max is unemployed, her house is falling apart, and her ex, Lisa, is on the loose. On top of all that, she has no clue how to nurse her newborn baby. Can Goldie, an Orthodox Jewish lactation consultant, guide Max into motherhood? Or will conflicting family values get the better of them both? A play about cultural differences, motherhood and the many ways to love children.

Hannah and the Dread Gazebo by Jiehae Park (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 4w, 2m)
Inside the FedEx box are two things: a 100% bona-fide-heart’s-desire-level wish and a suicide note. Hannah tracks the package back to Korea, where her grandmother recently jumped from the roof of the Sunrise Dewdrop Apartment City for Senior Living onto the wrong side of the Demilitarized Zone. Oops. Three generations – daughter, mother and grandmother – are represented in this crazy, over-the-top and yet intimate play about family that’s family, even when you’re far from them.

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.

Hollywood Arms by Carol Burnett and Carrie Hamilton (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 5w, 5m, 1 girl)
This warm, laughter-inducing dramedy tells the story of three generations of women living on welfare in the 1940s-1950s in a one-room apartment one block north of Hollywood Boulevard. The cast of characters includes a tough, funny yet tender pill-popping Christian Scientist grandmother; a beautiful, wide-eyed and distant mother who is struggling to be a writer despite drowning her ambitions in a bottle; and a young girl whose only escape is the magical world she’s created up on the roof. An intergenerational play about shattered hopes and realized dreams.

Hollywood, Nebraska by Kenneth Jones (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 4w, 2m)
Two 40-something actresses have returned to their once-thriving hometown in rural Nebraska. Jane is in from Los Angeles to check on her ailing mom, Alma. Andrea’s back from New York City to bury her father. Distracted by two charismatic local men, the old friends navigate complicated feelings about their careers, love and loss. Hollywood, Nebraska is a hope-filled, tears-and-laughter comedy about small towns and big dreams, parents and children, the urge to be creative, and the ache – and joy – of coming home.

How Black Mothers Say I Love You by Trey Anthony (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 4w)
A powerful and touching tale of immigration, family and sacrifice. Hard-working Daphne left her two young daughters in Jamaica for six years to create a better life for them in America. Now, 30 years later, proud and private, Daphne is relying on church and her nearby dutiful daughter to face a health crisis. But the arrival of feisty activist Claudette stirs up family ghosts and the burning desire for unconditional love in this poignant drama about generational trauma.

How the Light Gets In by E.M. Lewis (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 2m)
E.M. Lewis’ richly human play is a heartfelt and poignant look at four grieving individuals who understand that personal connection, though messy, may be their best path to healing. In it, Grace Wheeler – a travel writer in her mid-forties who has never been anywhere – now volunteers as a docent at the Japanese Garden, where she finds a found family in an architect named Haruki, a tattoo artist named Tommy Z, and Kat Lane, a young runaway girl.

Hurt Village by Katori Hall (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w, 4m)
It’s the end of a long summer in Hurt Village, a housing project in Memphis, TN. A government Hope Grant means relocation for many of the residents, including Cookie, a 13-year-old aspiring rapper, her mother, Crank, and great-grandmother, Big Mama. As the family prepares to move, Cookie’s father, Buggy, unexpectedly returns from a tour of duty in Iraq. Buggy struggles to find a position in his disintegrating community and in his daughter’s wounded heart in this passionate, rhythmic exploration of tragedy and hope.

In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 6w, 6m + ensemble)
This Tony Award-winning musical tells the universal story of a vibrant community in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood – a place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. It’s a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you and which ones you leave behind. The women in this neighborhood are the heart of the show, from the neighborhood’s beloved Abuela Claudia – a grandmother to all who live nearby – to the gorgeous group of gossips at Daniela’s salon to the community-treasured Stanford student Nina Rosario, home for the summer from her studies.

Infinite Life by Annie Baker (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w, 1m)
Five women in Northern California sit outside on chaise lounges and philosophize in award-winning playwright Annie Baker’s play set at a medical clinic outside San Francisco. A surprisingly funny inquiry into the complexity of suffering and what it means to desire in a body that’s failing you, this play holds roles for women from 40 to 80 to explore intergenerational interactions outside of family dynamics.

Into the Breeches! by George Brant (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 6w, 2m)
This surprisingly modern and moving comedy, set during World War II, explores the power of art and community, even in the darkest times. While Oberon Play House’s director and leading men are off at war, the director’s wife sets out to produce an all-female version of Shakespeare’s Henriad. The women in this troupe span generations, from women in their late teens to women in their fifties, all joining forces to make theatre happen.

Laughs in Spanish by Alexis Scheer (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 4w, 1m)
It’s Art Basel, and the stakes are high for the gallery that Mariana runs in the Wynwood Arts District in Miami. And when Mariana’s movie-star mother tries to help out, things get even more complicado. Laughs in Spanish is a fast-paced, cafecíto-induced comedy about art and success – and mothers and daughters.

Letters to Sala by Arlene Hutton (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 12w, 4m)
Adapted from the book Sala’s Gift by Ann Kirschner and based on a true account, this is the remarkable story of a young girl’s survival during wartime Germany. Over five years and seven Nazi labor camps, Sala Garncarz Kirschner wrote over 350 hidden letters. For over 50 years, she hid her painful history in a box. Everything changes when she reveals the cache to her grown daughter, Ann. Women across generations – from grandmothers to granddaughters – come together to interweave their legacy in this heartening drama.

Liberation by Bess Wohl (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 7w, 1m)
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. A provocative, wildly theatrical play that 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.

Lotus Beauty by Satinder Kaur Chohan (UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w)
Lotus Beauty follows the intertwined lives of five multigenerational women, inviting us into Reita’s Salon where clients can wax lyrical about their day’s tiny successes or have their struggles massaged, plucked or tweezed away. But with honest truths and sharp-witted barbs high among the treatments on offer, will the power of community be enough to raise the spirits of everyone who passes through the salon’s doors?

2018 New York Theatre Workshop Production of The House That Will Not Stand (Joan Marcus)

Malindadzimu by Mufaro Makubika (UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 2m)
For Faith and her teenage daughter Hope, it seems as though growing up inevitably means growing apart. So Faith makes the drastic decision to move the family back to her native Zimbabwe to start over. It’s home for her but not for Hope – at least, not on the surface. Will the powers that have drawn them back to their roots help them find each other… and themselves? Mufaro Makubika’s Malindadzimu is delicate, witty and epic in equal measure, traveling from Nottingham to Zimbabwe to explore a mother and daughter’s search for belonging, their struggle with a multicultural heritage, and a haunting history that cannot be ignored.

Morning Sun by Simon Stephens (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 6w)
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 50 years pass, one woman’s life is revealed in all its complexity, mystery and possibility in this enthralling piece about mothers and daughters. Three generations showcase how women move into different shades of motherhood across the length of their lives in this elegant dance of pain and joy.

Mother Play by Paula Vogel (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 1m)
It’s 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis is supervising her teenage children, Carl and Martha, as they move into a new apartment. Phyllis has strong ideas about what her children need to do and be to succeed, and woe to the child who finds their own path. Bolstered by gin and cigarettes, the family endures — or survives — the changing world around them. Blending flares of imaginative theatricality, surreal farce and deep tenderness, this beautiful roller-coaster ride reveals timeless truths of love, family and forgiveness.

My Mother Said I Never Should by Charlotte Keatley (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w)
This award-winning play is about four generations of women growing up in England during this century is a warm, poignant elegy about growing up, growing old and growing – or not growing – wise. As all four generations interact onstage, a realization that it often takes generations to learn about the value of real feeling brings complex understanding of human nature to the stage in a humorous and compassionate opportunity for four actors.

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.

Nine Night by Natasha Gordon (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 5w, 2m)
When Gloria passes away, it falls to her British-born children to host the traditional Jamaican Nine Night celebration. Family and friends, familiar and unfamiliar, arrive to celebrate the life of the woman who connects them all and deal with unfinished business along the way. Nine Night is at once moving and raucously funny. Playwright Gordon paints the rituals of grief, the tensions of family and the complexities of identity with an acute eye and razor-sharp wit.

On the Wings of a Mariposa by Dinorah Márquez Abadiano, Barbara Joosse and Alvaro Saar Rios (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play with Music, Drama / 4w, 1m, 5 any gender)
Based on Barbara Joosse’s beloved children book, this play with music is the story about one girl’s quest to keep her abuelita’s memory alive during the beautiful annual monarch butterfly migration. After her abuelita dies, 10-year-old Pilar uses an old shawl that smells like her grandmother to help remember their adventures together. But as the shawl’s scent fades, so too do Pilar’s memories. Once it’s gone, will she lose her grandmother forever? This play with music is a true celebration of life and bursts at the seams with warm memories and joy with roles for a number of whimsical hearts.

POTUS by Selina Fillinger (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 7w)
An uproarious Broadway debut by playwright Selina Fillinger, POTUS, Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive is a riotous comedy about the women in charge of the man in charge of the free world. When the President unwittingly spins a PR nightmare into a global crisis, the seven brilliant and beleaguered women he relies upon most risk life, liberty and the pursuit of sanity to keep the commander-in-chief out of trouble.

Precious Little by Madeleine George (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy / 3w)
Brodie, a gifted linguist, learns unsettling news about the baby she carries. Unable to get comfort from her girlfriend, she finds it in the two least-likely sources imaginable: the elderly speaker of a vanishing language… and a gorilla at the zoo. Madeleine George’s irreverent and charming play reveals the beauty and the limits of human language.

Protect the Beautiful Place by Nathan Alan Davis (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w, 2m)
Four generations of a family are living in a home nestled in the woods of southern Illinois. The matriarch stands firm, even as her family worries about her age and health. Her daughter-in-law fends off the ghost of her late husband. Her great-grandson has just brought home a new girlfriend, and everyone is very interested in making sure she can maintain the lineage of family living in their home. This play is part one of The Refuge Plays (US/UK), Nathan Alan Davis’ epic trilogy following one Black family over 70 years, which can be presented together or individually.

STEW by Zora Howard (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w)
Mama is up early to prepare an important meal and, even with her family on hand to help, time is running short. Tensions simmer with three generations of Tucker women under one roof, but things come to a boil as the violence hovering around the periphery of their lives begins to intrude upon the sanctity of Mama’s kitchen.

The Boadicea of Britannia Street by Ade Morris (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 4w)
Widow, poet and cat lover Fran Lamb, a writer for local newspaper The Winkham Weekly Snooze, decides to start up her own creative writing group. She is joined at the Winkham Memorial Institute by panicked P.E. teacher Penny, shy librarian Janet, and Annie, a housewife whose mysterious anxiety causes her to substitute the correct words for entirely the wrong ones. From this uncompromising beginning, the four women soon form plans to write and perform a play about Boadicea, the ancient East Anglican queen and feminist icon. Over the course of several weeks, truths are gradually shared – along with tea and vodka – and soon the women find themselves needing to draw on heroic reserves of their own.

The Cake by Bekah Brunstetter (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 3w, 1m)
In Bekah Brunstetter’s touching and topical dramatic comedy, a vivacious, conservative North Carolina baker named Della faces a crisis of conscience when Jen — whom she loves like a daughter — asks her to bake a cake for Jen’s lesbian wedding. Generational perspectives complicate in the face of deep, real relationships in this thoughtfully-rendered play.

The Game by Bekah Brunstetter (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 5w, 1m)
Every relationship hits a glitch. Alyssa and Homer are feeling disconnected in their marriage, and it’s all due to the massively engrossing online game that’s wreaking havoc on the lives of couples everywhere. When she puts together a support group for other women in a similar situation – from the 70-year-old Myra, who doesn’t quite understand but is up for anything, to the wide-eyed, newly pregnant twenty-something Cleo, the game enters a new level. All’s fair in love and war in this hilarious and heartfelt contemporary twist on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata.

The Gardens of Anuncia by Michael John LaChiusa (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dark Comedy / 5w, 2m)
Before her amazing career on Broadway, Graciela Daniele was a young girl growing up in 1940s Buenos Aires in the shadow of the Perón regime. The Gardens of Anuncia is her coming-of-age story in the form of a gorgeous, tango-infused new musical written by her longtime collaborator and friend, Michael John LaChiusa. With wit and wisdom, the show follows Anuncia as she tends the garden of her country house and reflects on her life, looking back on her girlhood in Argentina and paying homage to the family of women whose love and sacrifices allowed her to become the legendary creative force she is today. Two actors play Anuncia at different stages in her life – one for age 8 to early teens, the other for mid-70s to early 80s – alongside a strong ensemble of women playing the mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters of the family.

The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar) by Nia Akilah Robinson (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 2m)
In 1832, a mother and daughter stand vigil behind a church in Philadelphia at the grave of a recently deceased loved one. Today, on the same grounds, another strangely familiar mother and daughter work as counselors at what is now a sleepaway camp. Timelines collide, horrors are buried and revealed, but love never lacks. A darkly comedic play about our nation’s long practice of harming Black bodies in the name of scientific progress, our responsibility to time, and the role joy plays in living with a history we cannot change.

The House That Will Not Stand by Marcus Gardley (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 7w)
In early 19th-century New Orleans, a widowed mother, Beartrice, struggles to manage her headstrong daughters. But as the matriarch takes her place as head of the household, a more ominous transfer of power transpires in the region. 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 Joy Luck Club by Susan Kim and Amy Tan (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 12w, 3m)
Based on the novel of the same name, this theatrical version of The Joy Luck Club tells the story of four older Chinese-American women and their complex relationships with their American-born daughters. The play moves from China in the early 20th century and San Francisco from the 1950s to the 1980s as the eight women struggle to reach across a seemingly vast chasm of culture, generation and expectations to find strength and happiness.

The Light in the Piazza by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 4w, 4m + ensemble)
In this lush, romantic musical set in 1958, Margaret Johnson is touring the Tuscan countryside with her daughter, Clara. While sightseeing, Clara meets Fabrizio Naccarelli, a handsome Florentine, and sparks an immediate and intense romance. As events unfold, a secret is revealed, and Margaret is forced to reconsider not only Clara’s future, but her own hope as well.

The Loved Ones by Erica Murray (UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w)
In a remote renovated farmhouse, Nell prepares to scatter her son’s ashes with her grieving daughter-in-law, Orla, while Cheryl-Ann, a visitor from America, settles in for an idyllic break in the wilds of West Clare. Their weekend plans turn upside down when an unexpected guest arrives looking for shelter, solace and understanding. In this beautiful world premiere from Erica Murray, a situation as unlikely as it is inevitable will send these four lives reeling, leaving them questioning the true nature of love, loss and birds.

The Mai by Marina Carr (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 7w, 1m)
An accomplished, beautiful 40-year-old woman, The Mai has always sought an exceptional life, and when her cellist husband leaves her, she sets about building her dream house. Her story is accompanied by multiple generations of women, from the irreverent, unapologetic, opium-smoking one-hundred-year-old matriarch, Grandma Fraochlan, to The Mai’s daughters, Agnes and Julie, who meddle in the affairs of their three nieces with comical tenacity. Deeply theatrical and profoundly intense, The Mai is an epic tale of love and loss, of elusive dreams shattered by vulgar but inescapable reality.

The Red Velvet Cake War by Jones Hope Wooten (US)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 7w, 3m)
In this riotously funny comedy, the three Verdeen cousins could not have picked a worse time to throw their family reunion, their outrageous antics delighting local gossips in the small town of Sweetgum. With women in the family from their 80s all the way down to their 40s, this crowd-pleasing comedy brings generations of laughs.

The Rink by Terrence McNally, John Kander and Fred Ebb (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 3w, 5m)
In a sort of Coney Island of the mind, streetwise Anna Antonelli discovers that her roller rink is about to be demolished, and with it, sour memories of her philandering husband and painfully shy daughter, Angel. When Angel returns to Coney Island after years of aimless wandering, the rink becomes an arena in which mother and daughter examine their past, present and future.

Three Sisters by Madeleine George and Anton Chekhov (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w, 8m)
A new translation of Chekhov’s classic play about big souls trapped in tiny boxes. Stuck in the Russian countryside at the turn of the 20th century, sisters Olga, Masha and Irina dream of futures in the wake of their father’s death amid a changing world.

Three Sisters by Sarah Ruhl, Anton Chekhov, Elise Thoron, Natasha Paramonova and Kristin Johnsen-Neshati (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5w, 9m)
The humor and heartbreak of one of the world’s greatest plays is revealed through the lyricism of a leading voice in contemporary theatre: two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl. Transplanted from their beloved Moscow to a provincial Russian town, three sisters – school teacher Olga, unhappily married Masha and idealistic Irina – yearn for the city of their childhood, where they imagine their lives will be transformed and fulfilled. A portrait of a family grappling with the bittersweet distance between reality and dreams.

Time and the Conways by J.B. Priestley (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 6w, 4m)
The Conways are having a party to celebrate Kay’s twenty-first birthday. Kay hopes to be a novelist. Hazel, the beauty, anticipates a romantic marriage. Madge wants to reform the world and marry the dashing young family lawyer. Carol, the baby of the family, spreads good cheer while Robin, back from war, is certain to have a good career. Alan is content to be an armchair philosopher. The nitwit mother has high hopes for them all. At the party, Kay, with frightening clarity, sees her family twenty years in the future. They are petty, mean and unfulfilled. Over the course of the play, Kay and her brother realize time is relative, and, perhaps, there is something fine and worthwhile beyond.

Top Girls by Caryl Churchill (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 7w)
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. Working women across generations come together at this symbolic meal, creating a blistering yet sympathetic look at women who achieve success by adopting the worst traits of self-made men.

Unexpected Joy by Bill Russell and Janet Hood (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 4w)
Change is in the air when three generations of female singers and long-held family tensions spend a week together. In modern-day Cape Cod, Joy, a baby boomer and proud hippie, is holding a memorial concert for the other half of her popular musical duo, Jump & Joy. When her tightly wound conservative daughter and her sweet, rebellious granddaughter arrive from Oklahoma, sparks fly. A heartfelt and hilarious story celebrating diversity and acceptance while weaving folk-rock, pop and blues into a fresh, dynamic score.

Where Women Go by Tina Howe (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 8w, 2m)
Where Women Go is a series of three short one-acts for a diverse cast of women of various ages. Tina Howe’s eccentric plays explore the humor and absurdity of women’s daily lives as they visit the dermatologist, eat at Subway and go shopping.

Wish You Were Here by Sanaz Toossi (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 5w)
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. With breathtaking humanity and cutting wit, Wish You Were Here chronicles a decade of life during war, as best friends forever become friends long lost, scattered and searching for home.

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