Expand the Canon: Explore Classic Plays by Women Playwrights

by Lorraine Hansberry

If you’re looking to tackle race, imperialism, and the prejudice of the Western world towards African countries, consider this mesmerizing masterpiece. Set in a rural Christian mission in an unnamed African country, this play explores the complexities of navigating personal relationships across racial divides when every decision you make is inherently political. Intricate, atmospheric, and shimmering with emotional truth, this play is as relevant to our modern world now as it was 50 years ago.

by Fumiko Enchi and Ayako Kano

If you’re interested in the intersection of art and politics, consider this one-act play. In Restless Night in Late Spring, two college students debate the virtues of creating art or abandoning it all to become a political activist—both coming close to understanding each other, while not seeing eye to eye. This is an important conversation for all artists in rocky global moments.

by Estela Portillo-Tramblay

If you’re looking for a lush, poetic drama with a powerhouse queer heroine and an intersectional view of indigeneity, consider this moving piece from an eminent Chicana dramatist. Josefa is a pillar of her rural community—unflappable, benevolent, formidable, respected. Why then is there a fresh bloodstain on her floor? As the rest of the village women gather for a ritual to find husbands, Josefa is trapped in her house, frantically trying to prevent her secret from being revealed. The Day of the Swallows is a harrowing, verdant exploration of the creation and keeping of a queer utopia, and what it costs to protect it. Capturing the poetry and cultural interrogation of Tennessee Williams with a distinctly feminist viewpoint, the play examines the secrets we’re forced to keep and the lengths we go to hide them.

by Wakako Yamauchi

If you’re looking for a wistful story about immigration, identity, and the American dream, then dive into the powerful yet sparse world of Wakako Yamauchi’s And the Soul Shall Dance. Set in Great Depression-era California, this play follows two Japanese immigrant families and their young daughters as they struggle to make ends meet, integrate into US society, and survive the whims of nature and each other. United by circumstance, the women find solace in each other, building bonds despite their differing impressions and traumas, and savoring the art that makes their souls dance. Intimately specific yet universally felt, this historical family drama illuminates the realities of immigration, labor struggles, and gender inequities that still resonate today.

by Mae West

If you thought LGBTQ+ culture was invented in the 1960s, think again. Witty, tragic, and vibrant, The Drag premiered in 1927 and is an exquisite portrait of the existing LGBTQ+ community of the 1920s. Mae West crafts an eloquent history lesson mixed with joyful celebration. The Drag shows the perils of “conversion therapy” and the criminalization of homosexuality, while simultaneously presenting in delightful clarity the  same joys, losses, warmth, and transgressive counter-culture that the LGBTQ+ community feels to this day. 

by Alice Childress

If you’re looking for an elegant, subtle, and subversive blend of heart and politics, Alice Childress works her magic again with Florence. Set in a train station in the Jim Crow south, Mama waits to board a train to New York City, planning to bring her daughter Florence home from trying to “make it” as a stage actress. A jaded white actress awaits the same train, and though first seeming to help, it becomes clear she thinks nothing of Florence’s prospects—and Mama has to decide if she'll support or deny her daughter's dreams. This sinuous story holds the tension of rebellion and heartbreak, painting a vivid picture of the so-called white Northern ally erasure of Black joy, worth, and humanity.

by Maria Irene Fornes

If you’re looking for a play that leverages the existentialism of Beckett but ratchets up the stakes through erotic powerplay, you’ll love Maria Irene Fornés’ Tango Palace. Isidore, a gender fluid bon vivant, has trapped their lover, the earnest and noble Leopold, in a room. The space becomes the pair’s entire universe and the stage on which they dance, dissect, and detonate their desires. The dangerous co-dependence of their erotic relationship spills over as they tango, driving them towards death in this searing and sensual examination of masculinity and destructive desire.

by Ntozake Shange

If you’re looking for an ensemble-lead choreopoem that explores the Black experience in the entertainment industry, consider Spell #7 by celebrated playwright Ntozake Shange. Set in the late 70s in St. Louis, Missouri, the play welcomes us into a world not too far from our own, forcing us to reckon with the realities of the “isms” in creative spaces. The play takes us through the lives of nine characters who are fighting to discover themselves as artists in a society that sees them as one dimensional afterthoughts. Using a mixture of lush poetry and stylized choreography (and guided by a literal magician), the ensemble explores the effects of blackface and violence against Black women in the entertainment industry and beyond.