The 50 Greatest Plays of All Time, Ranked
The 50 greatest plays of all time, ranked, from Hamlet and Oedipus Rex to Angels in America, with why each matters and the best roles for actors.
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Updated November 2026: re-ranked the full list, added Hamlet, Macbeth, Oedipus Rex, The Crucible, A Doll’s House, The Glass Menagerie and Our Town, and corrected play and playwright names.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare is the play most often named the greatest of all time, and it tops many critics’ lists. Close contenders include Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
Below is our ranking of the 50 greatest plays ever written, chosen by working actors, with the year each play premiered, why it matters, and the roles every actor should know.
How we chose the greatest plays
We ranked plays on four things: their influence on the theater that followed, how often they are still produced, the strength of their roles for actors, and how widely critics and scholars agree on them. The list covers non-musical plays only, from ancient Greece to the 21st century.
Two more rules shaped the list. Each entry is a single play, so great writers like Shakespeare, Ibsen and Arthur Miller can appear more than once. And because we’re an acting site, every entry ends with the roles worth knowing, many of which are the source of the audition monologues actors use most.
The greatest plays at a glance
| Rank | Play | Playwright | Premiered | Role to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | c. 1600 | Hamlet |
| 2 | Long Day’s Journey into Night | Eugene O’Neill | 1956 | Mary Tyrone |
| 3 | Death of a Salesman | Arthur Miller | 1949 | Willy Loman |
| 4 | Oedipus Rex | Sophocles | c. 429 BC | Oedipus |
| 5 | A Streetcar Named Desire | Tennessee Williams | 1947 | Blanche DuBois |
| 6 | Waiting for Godot | Samuel Beckett | 1953 | Vladimir |
| 7 | Angels in America | Tony Kushner | 1991–93 | Prior Walter |
| 8 | A Raisin in the Sun | Lorraine Hansberry | 1959 | Walter Lee Younger |
| 9 | Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | Edward Albee | 1962 | Martha |
| 10 | A Doll’s House | Henrik Ibsen | 1879 | Nora Helmer |
| 11 | Macbeth | William Shakespeare | c. 1606 | Macbeth |
| 12 | King Lear | William Shakespeare | c. 1606 | Lear |
| 13 | The Seagull | Anton Chekhov | 1896 | Nina |
| 14 | Fences | August Wilson | 1985 | Troy Maxson |
| 15 | The Crucible | Arthur Miller | 1953 | John Proctor |
| 16 | Hedda Gabler | Henrik Ibsen | 1891 | Hedda Gabler |
| 17 | The Glass Menagerie | Tennessee Williams | 1944 | Amanda Wingfield |
| 18 | Medea | Euripides | 431 BC | Medea |
| 19 | The Importance of Being Earnest | Oscar Wilde | 1895 | Lady Bracknell |
| 20 | Our Town | Thornton Wilder | 1938 | The Stage Manager |
| 21 | Tartuffe | Molière | 1664 | Tartuffe |
| 22 | Mother Courage and Her Children | Bertolt Brecht | 1941 | Mother Courage (Anna Fierling) |
| 23 | Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead | Tom Stoppard | 1966 | Rosencrantz |
| 24 | Look Back in Anger | John Osborne | 1956 | Jimmy Porter |
| 25 | Topdog/Underdog | Suzan-Lori Parks | 2001 | Lincoln |
| 26 | Miss Julie | August Strindberg | 1889 | Julie |
| 27 | Glengarry Glen Ross | David Mamet | 1983 | Ricky Roma |
| 28 | Saint Joan | George Bernard Shaw | 1923 | Joan |
| 29 | Top Girls | Caryl Churchill | 1982 | Marlene |
| 30 | August: Osage County | Tracy Letts | 2007 | Violet Weston |
| 31 | Betrayal | Harold Pinter | 1978 | Emma |
| 32 | Doubt: A Parable | John Patrick Shanley | 2004 | Sister Aloysius |
| 33 | Sweat | Lynn Nottage | 2015 | Tracey |
| 34 | Amadeus | Peter Shaffer | 1979 | Antonio Salieri |
| 35 | True West | Sam Shepard | 1980 | Lee |
| 36 | Private Lives | Noël Coward | 1930 | Elyot Chase |
| 37 | The Pillowman | Martin McDonagh | 2003 | Katurian |
| 38 | Awake and Sing! | Clifford Odets | 1935 | Bessie Berger |
| 39 | Machinal | Sophie Treadwell | 1928 | The Young Woman (Helen) |
| 40 | Between Riverside and Crazy | Stephen Adly Guirgis | 2014 | Walter “Pops” Washington |
| 41 | God of Carnage | Yasmina Reza | 2006 | Veronica |
| 42 | Proof | David Auburn | 2000 | Catherine |
| 43 | The Odd Couple | Neil Simon | 1965 | Oscar Madison |
| 44 | Indecent | Paula Vogel | 2015 | Lemml |
| 45 | Fefu and Her Friends | María Irene Fornés | 1977 | Fefu |
| 46 | Water by the Spoonful | Quiara Alegría Hudes | 2011 | Elliot |
| 47 | Rabbit Hole | David Lindsay-Abaire | 2006 | Becca |
| 48 | The Wolves | Sarah DeLappe | 2016 | #25 |
| 49 | Pipeline | Dominique Morisseau | 2017 | Nya |
| 50 | Eurydice | Sarah Ruhl | 2003 | Eurydice |
The 50 greatest plays of all time
1. Hamlet
Hamlet is the play most often ranked as the greatest of all time, topping lists from critics and actors alike. A Danish prince learns that his uncle murdered his father, and spends five acts deciding what to do about it. Nothing in drama before it let an audience inside a character’s mind the way Hamlet’s soliloquies do, and four centuries later every generation of actors still measures itself against the part.
Roles to knowHamlet, Ophelia, Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius. “To be, or not to be” remains the most famous speech in the English language. More on William Shakespeare.
2. Long Day’s Journey into Night
Long Day’s Journey into Night is widely called the greatest American play. Over a single day in 1912, the Tyrone family, a fading actor, his morphine-addicted wife and their two troubled sons, turns on itself. O’Neill wrote it in 1941–42 and asked that it not be staged until long after his death; his widow released it, and it premiered in 1956, winning the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Roles to knowMary Tyrone, James Tyrone, Jamie, Edmund. More Eugene O’Neill plays and his life and work.
3. Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller turned an ordinary traveling salesman into a figure of tragedy, and in doing so wrote the defining play about the American Dream. Willy Loman’s slide, told through present-day scenes and memories that bleed into them, won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. It is revived on Broadway roughly once a decade, and each revival finds something new.
Roles to knowWilly Loman, Linda Loman (“Attention must be paid”), Biff, Happy. See more Arthur Miller plays and Arthur Miller monologues.
4. Oedipus Rex
Aristotle used Oedipus Rex as his model of tragedy in the Poetics, and it remains the template for dramatic structure today. A king hunts for the cause of a plague on Thebes and discovers it is himself. The audience knows the ending; the power is in watching Oedipus get there, one revelation at a time.
Roles to knowOedipus, Jocasta, Tiresias, Creon.
5. A Streetcar Named Desire
Blanche DuBois arrives at her sister’s cramped New Orleans apartment with her illusions and a trunk of old finery, and collides with her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski. Williams’ poetic realism, all heat and desperation, won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize and made Marlon Brando a star. Blanche is one of the great summit roles for an actress.
Roles to knowBlanche DuBois, Stanley Kowalski, Stella, Mitch. More on Tennessee Williams.
6. Waiting for Godot
Two men wait by a tree for someone called Godot, who never comes. First staged in Paris in 1953, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot became the defining work of the Theatre of the Absurd and changed what a play could be: no plot to speak of, yet endlessly gripping. For actors, it is a masterclass in rhythm, comic timing and stillness.
Roles to knowVladimir, Estragon, Pozzo, Lucky.
7. Angels in America
Subtitled “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” Tony Kushner’s two-part epic, Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, follows people living through the AIDS crisis in Reagan-era New York, with angels, ghosts and the real-life fixer Roy Cohn. It won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Awards for both parts, and it is the most important American play of the last 40 years.
Roles to knowPrior Walter, Roy Cohn, Louis Ironson, Harper Pitt, Belize.
8. A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by a Black woman produced on Broadway. The Youngers, a Black family in a crowded Chicago apartment, wait for a $10,000 insurance check that each of them plans to spend differently. Its title comes from Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” and its questions about dreams, money and dignity have never dated.
Roles to knowWalter Lee Younger, Lena Younger (Mama), Beneatha, Ruth.
9. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Over one long, drunken night, a history professor and his wife draw a younger couple into their vicious games. Edward Albee’s dialogue cuts like nothing before it. The play won the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Pulitzer board’s refusal to give it the prize in 1963 remains one of the most famous snubs in theater.
Roles to knowMartha, George, Nick, Honey.
10. A Doll’s House
Nora Helmer seems the perfect wife until a secret debt threatens to expose her. A Doll’s House ends with Nora walking out on her husband and children, one of the most famous final scenes in theater, and it helped launch modern realism. Productions still spark arguments about it more than 140 years later.
Roles to knowNora Helmer, Torvald Helmer, Nils Krogstad, Kristine Linde.
11. Macbeth
Spurred by three witches’ prophecy and his wife’s ambition, a Scottish general murders his king and takes the throne, then has to keep killing to hold it. Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy and his most relentless, a study of how guilt eats away at the people who seize power. It is one of his most performed plays, and Lady Macbeth’s speeches are among the most-used classical audition monologues.
Roles to knowMacbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, Macduff, the Witches. More on William Shakespeare.
12. King Lear
An aging king divides his kingdom among the daughters who flatter him best and banishes the one who loves him most. King Lear is Shakespeare’s bleakest tragedy and, for many critics, his greatest achievement after Hamlet. Lear is the role great actors wait their whole careers to play.
Roles to knowLear, Cordelia, Goneril, Regan, Edmund, the Fool. More on William Shakespeare.
13. The Seagull
A young playwright, his actress mother, her novelist lover and the girl who dreams of the stage all want something they can’t have. The Seagull flopped at its 1896 premiere, then became a triumph two years later at the Moscow Art Theatre under Stanislavski, whose acting system grew out of staging Chekhov. Its scenes about art and ambition still speak directly to actors.
Roles to knowNina, Konstantin Treplev, Irina Arkadina, Trigorin, Masha.
14. Fences
Fences is part of August Wilson’s Century Cycle, ten plays charting Black life in Pittsburgh across each decade of the 20th century. Troy Maxson, a former Negro League star now hauling garbage, fights his son, his wife and his own bitterness in 1950s Pittsburgh. It won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, and Troy is one of the great American leading roles.
Roles to knowTroy Maxson, Rose Maxson, Cory, Gabriel. See more August Wilson plays.
15. The Crucible
Arthur Miller set the 1692 Salem witch trials onstage as an answer to the anti-communist hearings of his own day. Hysteria spreads, neighbors accuse neighbors, and John Proctor must choose between a lie that saves him and the truth that will hang him. It is one of the most produced plays in American schools and theaters.
Roles to knowJohn Proctor, Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Proctor, Reverend Hale. See Arthur Miller monologues.
16. Hedda Gabler
Bored, trapped in a dull marriage and hungry for control, Hedda Gabler sets out to shape someone else’s fate. Ibsen’s title character is so complex that she is often called “the female Hamlet,” and the role has drawn great actresses in every generation.
Roles to knowHedda Gabler, Jørgen Tesman, Judge Brack, Eilert Løvborg, Thea Elvsted.
17. The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams’ breakthrough is a “memory play,” narrated by Tom Wingfield as he looks back on his overbearing mother Amanda and his fragile sister Laura. It opened in Chicago in 1944 and on Broadway the next year, establishing Williams’ lyrical style. Its four roles make it a favorite of drama programs.
Roles to knowAmanda Wingfield, Tom Wingfield, Laura Wingfield, Jim O’Connor (the Gentleman Caller).
18. Medea
Abandoned by her husband Jason for a younger, royal bride, Medea takes the most terrible revenge imaginable. Euripides’ tragedy has lost none of its power to shock, and modern productions often find a woman fighting an unjust world as much as a monster. Medea is one of the great tragic roles in theater.
Roles to knowMedea, Jason, the Nurse, Creon. More Euripides plays and Euripides monologues.
19. The Importance of Being Earnest
Two young men invent alter egos to escape their obligations, and chaos follows. Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners is a clockwork plot of mistaken identity and lost handbags, packed with some of the most quoted lines in English. It is the standard every comedy of manners is still measured against.
Roles to knowLady Bracknell, Algernon Moncrieff, Jack Worthing, Gwendolen, Cecily. More on Oscar Wilde’s plays and Oscar Wilde monologues.
20. Our Town
On a nearly bare stage, a Stage Manager guides the audience through the small town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, from daily life to love to death. Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer winner looks simple but was radical for its time, and its final act is among the most moving scenes in American drama.
Roles to knowthe Stage Manager, Emily Webb, George Gibbs.
21. Tartuffe
A religious fraud worms his way into a wealthy household and almost takes everything. Molière’s satire of hypocrisy was banned after its first performance in 1664 and only allowed in revised form five years later. It is still the funniest play about a con man ever written.
Roles to knowTartuffe, Orgon, Dorine, Elmire. More on Molière’s plays.
22. Mother Courage and Her Children
During the Thirty Years’ War, a canteen woman makes her living selling to soldiers on both sides and loses her children one by one. Written as Hitler invaded Poland and first staged in Zurich in 1941, it is the clearest example of Brecht’s “epic theatre,” which asks audiences to think rather than simply feel.
Roles to knowMother Courage (Anna Fierling), Kattrin, Eilif, the Chaplain.
23. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Tom Stoppard takes two minor courtiers from Hamlet and makes them the leads in a dazzling, absurd comedy about fate and free will. First seen at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1966, it made Stoppard’s name and won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1968.
Roles to knowRosencrantz, Guildenstern, the Player.
24. Look Back in Anger
John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger gave its name to Britain’s “angry young men” playwrights. Jimmy Porter rages at his wife, his class and the whole country from a cramped Midlands flat. Its 1956 premiere at London’s Royal Court is often called the moment modern British drama began.
Roles to knowJimmy Porter, Alison Porter, Cliff, Helena.
25. Topdog/Underdog
Two brothers named Lincoln and Booth share a rooming house, a past and a dangerous con: three-card monte. Suzan-Lori Parks’ play won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, making her the first Black woman to win the drama prize. It is a two-hander of rare intensity for actors.
Roles to knowLincoln, Booth. Browse more two-hander plays.
26. Miss Julie
On Midsummer’s Eve, a count’s daughter and her father’s valet play a game of seduction and power that neither can win. August Strindberg’s tight, explosive drama of class and sex is a landmark of naturalism, and its three roles make it a staple of acting classes.
Roles to knowJulie, Jean, Kristin.
27. Glengarry Glen Ross
Four Chicago real estate salesmen will lie, steal and beg to win a sales contest whose losers get fired. David Mamet’s rapid, profane, overlapping dialogue made this the most influential American play of the 1980s, and it won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize.
Roles to knowRicky Roma, Shelley Levene, Dave Moss, John Williamson.
28. Saint Joan
George Bernard Shaw follows Joan of Arc from peasant girl to soldier to heretic burned at the stake, and lets every side argue its case. Written soon after her canonization, it is Shaw’s greatest drama and one of the great female leads in the repertoire.
Roles to knowJoan, the Dauphin, the Earl of Warwick, the Inquisitor.
29. Top Girls
A newly promoted executive throws a dinner party for famous women from history, then the play cuts to the cost of her success at home. Caryl Churchill’s overlapping dialogue and bold structure made Top Girls a landmark of feminist theater, and its first act is a favorite for scene study.
Roles to knowMarlene, Joyce, Angie, Pope Joan, Dull Gret.
30. August: Osage County
When an Oklahoma patriarch disappears, his pill-addicted wife Violet and their three daughters gather, and every family secret comes out. Tracy Letts’ three-hour epic, first produced at Chicago’s Steppenwolf, won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award.
Roles to knowViolet Weston, Barbara Fordham, Beverly Weston.
31. Betrayal
Harold Pinter tells the story of an affair backward, from its bitter end to its first kiss. With only three main roles and his famous pauses, Betrayal is the most accessible Pinter play and a favorite of actors for its subtext.
Roles to knowEmma, Jerry, Robert.
32. Doubt: A Parable
In a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, a rigid nun suspects a popular priest of abusing a student, with no proof. John Patrick Shanley refuses to give the audience an answer. Doubt won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, and its four roles are all superb. Listen to our interview with John Patrick Shanley on the We Are Actors Podcast.
Roles to knowSister Aloysius, Father Flynn, Sister James, Mrs. Muller. More on John Patrick Shanley and his monologues.
33. Sweat
In a Reading, Pennsylvania, bar, factory workers who have been friends for decades turn on each other as layoffs hit. Lynn Nottage’s Sweat won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, her second, and it is now read as a portrait of the forces behind modern American politics.
Roles to knowTracey, Cynthia, Jason, Chris, Stan.
34. Amadeus
The court composer Antonio Salieri confesses how his envy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart drove him to destroy the younger genius. Peter Shaffer’s play won the 1981 Tony Award for Best Play, and Salieri, who narrates directly to the audience, is one of the great villain roles.
Roles to knowAntonio Salieri, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Constanze Weber.
35. True West
Two estranged brothers, a screenwriter and a drifter, swap places while house-sitting their mother’s Southern California home, and things go hilariously, violently wrong. It’s Sam Shepard’s most performed play and a two-hander actors fight over.
Roles to knowLee, Austin.
36. Private Lives
Divorced couple Elyot and Amanda discover they are honeymooning with their new spouses in adjoining hotel suites, and run off together within minutes. Noël Coward’s sharpest comedy runs on wit and speed, and it is a test of comic timing for any actor.
Roles to knowElyot Chase, Amanda Prynne, Victor, Sibyl.
37. The Pillowman
A writer in a totalitarian state is interrogated because the gruesome fairy tales he writes match a series of child murders. Martin McDonagh’s darkly funny, disturbing play won the Olivier Award for Best New Play and is a showcase for storytelling on stage.
Roles to knowKaturian, Michal, Tupolski, Ariel.
38. Awake and Sing!
Three generations of a Jewish family in the Bronx struggle through the Depression in one small apartment. Clifford Odets wrote it for the Group Theatre, the company that brought the Stanislavski system to America and shaped the acting styles taught today.
Roles to knowBessie Berger, Ralph Berger, Hennie Berger, Jacob, Moe Axelrod.
39. Machinal
Inspired by a real murder case, Machinal follows a young stenographer pushed into a loveless marriage until she kills her husband. Sophie Treadwell’s expressionist drama, with its clattering, mechanical rhythms, was rediscovered in recent decades and is now widely revived.
Roles to knowthe Young Woman (Helen), the Husband, the Lover.
40. Between Riverside and Crazy
A retired New York cop, shot years ago by a fellow officer, fights eviction from his rent-controlled Riverside Drive apartment while his son and assorted misfits move in around him. Stephen Adly Guirgis’ play won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize. Listen to our interview with Stephen Adly Guirgis.
Roles to knowWalter “Pops” Washington, Junior, Lulu, Oswaldo, the Church Lady. More Stephen Adly Guirgis plays.
41. God of Carnage
Two sets of parents meet politely to discuss a playground fight between their sons, and civility collapses within the hour. Yasmina Reza’s comedy, in Christopher Hampton’s English translation, won the 2009 Tony Award for Best Play.
Roles to knowVeronica, Michael, Annette, Alan.
42. Proof
After the death of her brilliant, mentally ill mathematician father, Catherine claims authorship of a groundbreaking proof found in his notebooks. Can she prove it, and did she inherit his illness? David Auburn’s play won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award.
Roles to knowCatherine, Robert, Claire, Hal.
43. The Odd Couple
A slob of a sportswriter takes in his neat-freak friend after his marriage collapses. Neil Simon’s comedy became a film, a TV series and a permanent part of American culture, and it remains a model of comic construction.
Roles to knowOscar Madison, Felix Ungar.
44. Indecent
Paula Vogel tells the true story of Sholem Asch’s Yiddish drama The God of Vengeance, whose 1923 Broadway cast was arrested for obscenity. Played by a small ensemble with live klezmer music, Indecent is a love letter to theater itself.
Roles to knowLemml, the ensemble roles.
45. Fefu and Her Friends
Eight women gather at a New England country house in 1935. In the middle section, the audience splits into groups and moves between rooms to watch scenes play at the same time. María Irene Fornés taught a generation of American playwrights, and this is her landmark.
Roles to knowFefu, Julia, Emma.
46. Water by the Spoonful
An Iraq War veteran in Philadelphia and members of an online recovery chat room find unexpected connection. Quiara Alegría Hudes’ play, the second of her Elliot Trilogy, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize.
Roles to knowElliot, Yaz, Odessa (“Haikumom”).
47. Rabbit Hole
A suburban couple tries to keep going eight months after their young son is killed in an accident. David Lindsay-Abaire’s quiet, unsentimental play about grief won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize.
Roles to knowBecca, Howie, Izzy, Jason.
48. The Wolves
A girls’ indoor soccer team warms up before each Saturday game, talking over each other about everything from genocide to periods. Sarah DeLappe’s debut was a 2017 Pulitzer finalist, and its nine-player ensemble is a gift to young actresses.
Roles to know#25, #7, #46, #00.
49. Pipeline
A public-school teacher fights to keep her teenage son from being pulled into the school-to-prison pipeline after an incident at his private school. Dominique Morisseau’s drama premiered at Lincoln Center Theater and is now widely produced.
Roles to knowNya, Omari, Jasmine.
50. Eurydice
Sarah Ruhl retells the Orpheus myth from Eurydice’s point of view: in the underworld, she reunites with her dead father and must choose between him and her husband. Funny, strange and heartbreaking, it is one of the most produced plays in American colleges.
Roles to knowEurydice, her Father, Orpheus, the Nasty Interesting Man.
More plays every actor should read
These didn’t make our all-time ranking, but each is a favorite in acting classes and audition rooms, and several are among the best sources of contemporary monologues.
- Fairview (2018) – Jackie Sibblies Drury. A family birthday dinner that turns into a confrontation with the audience about who is watching whom. Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize. Get the script on Amazon
- Fleabag (2013) – Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The one-woman show that became the hit TV series; a masterclass in direct address. See more one-person plays. Get the script on Amazon
- Lungs (2011) – Duncan Macmillan. A couple debates whether to have a child in a warming world, in one continuous, staging-free conversation. Get the script on Amazon
- Cock (2009) – Mike Bartlett. A man torn between his boyfriend and a woman he’s fallen for, played on a bare stage like a cockfight. Get the script on Amazon
- Brilliant Traces (1989) – Cindy Lou Johnson. A runaway bride turns up at a stranger’s remote Alaskan cabin during a blizzard; a two-hander full of audition material. Get the script on Amazon
- Beyond Therapy (1981) – Christopher Durang. A blind date between two neurotic New Yorkers, each with a terrible therapist. Get the script on Amazon
- My Zinc Bed (2000) – David Hare. A recovering alcoholic poet, a businessman and his wife in a tense triangle about addiction and control. Get the script on Amazon
- Marisol (1992) – José Rivera. A young woman in the Bronx is abandoned by her guardian angel as the angels go to war with a dying God. Get the script on Amazon
The greatest plays by era
Greek tragedy
Western drama begins in Athens in the fifth century BC. The Persians by Aeschylus, first performed in 472 BC, is the oldest surviving play in Western drama. From our list: Oedipus Rex (No. 4) and Medea (No. 18).
Shakespeare and the Renaissance
Shakespeare’s tragedies set the standard for character and verse that every playwright since has worked against. From our list: Hamlet (No. 1), Macbeth (No. 11) and King Lear (No. 12). For his lighter side, see our guide to Shakespeare comedy plays.
Comedy of manners and satire
From Molière’s France to Wilde’s London, these plays skewer hypocrisy and social pretension. From our list: Tartuffe (No. 21), The Importance of Being Earnest (No. 19) and Private Lives (No. 36).
Modern realism
In the late 19th century, Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov moved drama into ordinary rooms and ordinary lives, and created the kind of acting Stanislavski would build his system around. From our list: A Doll’s House (No. 10), The Seagull (No. 13), Hedda Gabler (No. 16) and Miss Julie (No. 26).
American classics
The mid-20th century produced the American canon. From our list: Long Day’s Journey into Night (No. 2), Death of a Salesman (No. 3), A Streetcar Named Desire (No. 5), A Raisin in the Sun (No. 8), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (No. 9), The Crucible (No. 15), The Glass Menagerie (No. 17) and Our Town (No. 20).
Theatre of the Absurd
After World War II, playwrights stripped away plot and logic to show a world without meaning, often with dark comedy. From our list: Waiting for Godot (No. 6) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (No. 23), with Pinter’s Betrayal (No. 31) showing its influence.
21st-century plays
The newest classics. From our list: Topdog/Underdog (No. 25), Doubt (No. 32), Sweat (No. 33), August: Osage County (No. 30), Between Riverside and Crazy (No. 40), The Wolves (No. 48) and Pipeline (No. 49).
For the writers behind them, see our guide to the greatest playwrights of all time, and our actor’s guide to breaking down a play.
Greatest plays FAQs
What is the greatest play of all time?
Hamlet by William Shakespeare is the play most often named the greatest of all time, and it tops many critics’ lists. Close contenders include Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
What is the greatest American play?
Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill is widely called the greatest American play. Written in 1941–42 and first staged in 1956, after O’Neill’s death, it won the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire are its usual rivals.
What is the oldest play still performed?
The Persians by Aeschylus, first performed in 472 BC, is the oldest surviving play in Western drama. Other Greek tragedies, including Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Euripides’ Medea, are still staged, studied and used for audition monologues today.
Which plays should every actor read?
Every actor should read Hamlet, Oedipus Rex, The Seagull, A Doll’s House, Death of a Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, Waiting for Godot, A Raisin in the Sun, Angels in America and Fences. Together they cover Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, realism, the absurd and modern American drama.
Where can I read or watch these plays?
Most of these plays are available from public libraries and from acting-edition publishers such as Concord Theatricals and Dramatists Play Service. Many are revived often on Broadway, in regional theaters and at colleges, and some major productions stream online, for example through National Theatre at Home.
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