American Theatre has released its annual list of the top ten most-produced plays, and while the 2013–2014 season boasted a commendable 50–50 split between male and female writers, a look at the top-ten plays over the past decade reveals that women playwrights still lag far behind their male counterparts in getting their works staged.
Women and Hollywood tallied up the plays that made the lists of the top ten most-produced plays from 1994–2004. Of the 82 works identified (several plays made the top ten for multiple years), 55 were by male writers and 27 by women writers. Meanwhile, female ticket-buyers continue to make up 70–80% of the theater-going audience.
Here are the eleven most staged productions from female playwrights of the past decade, in approximate order of popularity (it’s hard to get an exact number based on American Theatre’s data because some long-running productions might be listed multiple times):
God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza
Crowns by Regina Taylor
The Mountaintop by Katori Hall
In the Next Room, or the vibrator play by Sarah Ruhl
Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by Rachel Sheinkin (book)
Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker
Frozen by Bryony Lavery
The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl
4000 Miles by Amy Herzog
Tribes by Nina Raine
And here are the 16 other works that also made American Theatre’s top ten lists in the past decade, in no particular order:
The Cat in the Hat, adapted by Katie Mitchell from Dr. Seuss
Detroit by Lisa D’Amour
Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Ruined by Lynn Nottage
Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl
Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl
Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck
9 Parts of Desire by Heather Raffo
The Diary of Anne Frank, adapted by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
A Number by Caryl Churchill
Bad Dates by Theresa Rebeck
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast by Linda Woolverton (book)
Seussical by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (book); Ahrens (lyrics)
Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones
The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
[via American Theatre]
