Archive - MacAllen's Theater GUide

Popular Playwrights You Should Know

When I first started out nearly a decade ago, talking the talk with fellow community theater buffs seemed beguiling. Besides trying to pick up the language of theater like stage right, blocking, and flat, there was the constant reference to major playwrights and productions. In an effort to help the new you community theater enthusiast, I have simplified the process. As an American, these "popular" authors may seem the right picks; I apologize to non-English speaking readers, the British, Australians, and others for excluding a regionally popular playwright.

Neil Simon
The undisputed champion of Broadway style comedies is Neil Simon. Of modern playwrights, he probably carries the highest name recognition in the population as a whole, and with good reason. It probably does not hurt that many of his shows have gone from stage shows to the cinema, and of course in the case of the popular sitcom, The Odd Couple, to the television.

Neil Simon’s wit and humor is unmistakable; given a “Pepsi Challenge,” even a novice could pick out a Neil Simon script because of his unique style. Because of this recognizable style and name recognition, small theater groups often select a Simon work because they have nothing else to do making his shows very common; within a half hour of you dear reader, is likely at least one production of a Neil Simon show.

Familiarizing yourself with Neil Simon shows will be an invaluable asset. Some of the most frequently produced include, The Odd Couple, Rumors, Fools, The Star Spangled Girl, and Lost in Yonkers. If I’ve already convinced you of Simon’s popularity, then check the collected plays series from the New American Library:

The Collected Plays of Neil Simon
Collected Plays of Neil Simon (Vol. 3)
The Collected Plays of Neil Simon (Vol. 4)

The second volume of collected plays, for whatever reason, has always been difficult to find, even in used bookstores. If you are lucky enough to com across it, pick it up.

William Shakespeare
No list of common playwrights would be complete without mentioning the Bard. Since almost every English speaking school child is aware of Shakespeare, it almost seems silly to devote much attention to him at all. But at the same time, his overwhelming popularity throughout the last two centuries means he cannot be left out.

Popular with professional, amateur, community, and even children’s theater, Shakespeare’s plays are popular not just because of quality of the stories but also because they no longer carry royalty fees (though individual texts may) and carry name recognition that many other shows do not.

One of the most commonly produced plays by William Shakespeare is A Mid Summer Nights Dream: the fantasy fairly tail involving love, lust, and imps. Serious actors and directors should of course have working knowledge of this show as well as Othello, Hamlet, MacBeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night. These shows are commonly performed by small theater groups; modern variations and adaptations are also available including musical versions, children’s versions, and abbreviated storylines. Other notable scripts include The Tempest, King Lear, Henry V, and As You Like It, though are less important in most cases for the aspiring actor as these shows are less commonly performed.

Anyone who has gone through American high school English and Literature courses have probably come across most if not all of these shows. If you are like me though, you probably need to brush up on your Shakespeare. The tough part is determining what kind of text you want to work with. Every Shakespeare text is available on the internet at MIT. The disadvantage to these texts is that they contain no notations. The New Folger Library Editions are common faire for most college or high school classrooms; they have facing pages of notes for every page of the text. On the cheaper side of things are the Dover Thrift Editions. For about a dollar a copy, these books provide a hard copy of the text. The downside is the quality of each copy varies depending on the editor. For a complete selection of hardcopies, take a look at Amazon’s Shakespeare selection.

Gilbert and Sullivan
The operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan are timeless classics—and they can be produced royalty free. Hence community theaters looking to put on a musical often turn to the Gilbert and Sullivan classics because the shows can be produced for very little. Indeed the duo has such a following there are many groups dedicated to producing only Gilbert and Sullivan.

The important shows by these two characters include the HMS Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance, the Mikado, and The Gondoliers. Some aficionados of the pair will dispute this limited list.
This section referenced material at WikiPedia.org

Arthur Miller
Without trying to turn this list into the High School reading list, I’m placing Arthur Miller on here because of pivotal plays that are consistently find audiences: Death of SalesmanDeath of A Salesman and The Crucible. What Miller lacks in the volume of standard bearers that Neil Simon has demonstrated, he makes up for in the frequency of these two. But to say the Crucible or Death of a Salesman are the only two staples of Miller’s collection would be inaccurate and inappropriate. He’s been writing successful shows more than half a century and other popular titles include A View from the Bridge and All My Sons are also popular.