Top Ten Favorite Plays

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

 
This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks one question, but I decided to answer another. Here are my Top Ten Favorite Plays. I’m only including ones that I have both read and seen performed live, so there are definitely a few other plays I’ve loved even more that I’ve either seen or read, but not both. I love live theatre and I'm lucky enough to get to see a ton of productions because I review shows once a week at Stage Write! I’ve had so much fun reading plays before or after seeing them and realizing what choices the directors and actors made that differ from the text.
 
1) The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
2) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
3) Our Town by Thornton Wilder
4) Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
5) August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
6) Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose
7) Wit by Margaret Edson
8) A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
9) The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
10) Shakespeare (sorry I just can’t limit it to one!) The Tempest, Twelfth Night and Hamlet

7 comments:

Fanda Classiclit said...

Ah...Importance of Being Earnest is such a special play! I haven't read the others (shame on me), but hopefully I can repair that next year!

*ೃ༄ Jillian said...

I saw Hamlet performed and loved it so much more than reading it. (And I loved reading it.) I need to see some of these other plays!

LBC said...

Love it! I remember loving Our Town so much when I was younger. I think it was because they featured it in an episode of My So-Called Life.

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Fanda - I do love Earnest, such wit!

Marianne - There's something so powerful about seeing a play performed vs just reading the text.

LBC - I remember that episode!

Leslie @ This is the Refrain said...

I don't read or see enough plays, but man Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead was MIND BLOWING to me when I read it in high school. So was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Waiting for Godot, and No Exit. 12th grade was a good year for plays. Why don't I read more plays???

Bybee said...

I just watched Wit on YouTube a couple of weeks ago. I lost it when her old mentor visited. The Runaway Bunny! I had to break out the extra-absorbent paper towels.

Anonymous said...

I loved the Importance of Being Earnest! Such a witty play. Twelve Angry Men was also a great play. I really want to read the Woman in Black and A Streetcar Named Desire. I feel like the latter is one I should have gotten to long ago.

Erin @ www.raisedreading.wordpress.com