Literally everything that could go wrong in a play, actors being knocked unconscious, the set falling down, tech crew finding themselves in onstage roles, all of it and more happens in this one disaster of a performance. That pain is exacerbated by the sheer truthfulness of the subject matter, and for that reason, it provides a pointed telltale: Actors must be the vehicle for the audience’s emotions, and cannot under any circumstances let the emotions they are feeling in response to the material impede the material itself. By Casey Mink | Dec. 11, 2017, 03:30 PM | Last Updated: Mar. Viciously cutting dialogue mixed with a swathe of double entendre, Boston Marriage is one of Mamet’s best works and that is saying something! Correspondingly, the five-character drama posits the ensemble to be in nearly claustrophobic close touch with the director’s point of view as well as each other’s. Stage Milk / Best Of / Best Contemporary Comedy Plays. Laura Wade’s seventh play has been nothing short of a revelation. The only play on this list I haven’t personally read, The Humans was nominated for a Pulitzer prize in Drama, and won the Tony award for Best Play. These works are inspired by the unique issues faced by people in the modern age and are just as prolific in their ability to make audiences laugh, cry, think and feel as the great works that came before them. His unique, vivid, extremely dark comedies are the stuff of legend and The Lieutenant of Inishmore is more of that same vein. Before the Meryl Streep movie came this play, which brought some of the most electrifying scenes of the 21st century to the stage. Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” is actually a play told in two parts, “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika,” both viewable as separate entities but meant to be seen in-repertory. Pin. Our 7x sold out online acting course returns soon. Praised for its lack of artifice and intense naturalism, this play deals with the tragedies and fears of everyday life. It’s the first of its kind: a “memory play,” a term coined by Williams himself to describe the highly specific narrative style. The 21st century has seen an influx of plays that deal with Islamophobia, and Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer-winning “Disgraced” is a seminal example of why that is and why that should continue. There should be more female playwrights on this list. It is the job of the actors to be as ferociously present as this magnum opus itself. Following an ill-fated performance by an amateur theatre company of a fictitious murder-mystery play loosely based on The Mousetrap the amateur company putting it on must go through hell to complete their performance. It all feels incredibly real, sad, funny and hopeful all at the same time. Larry Kramer’s heavily autobiographical, 1980s-set heartbreaker went boldly where most before it had not, blazing the trail for what is today a proliferated genre: “the AIDS drama.” But more broadly, it could be considered an activist drama, one which makes splashes on political and social scales as big as it does in the artistic realm. Though it carries the torch of many other “family dramas”—and the influence of those is certainly prevalent—“August” is written less like a three-hour drama and more like a three-hour episode of television. Danai Gurira devotes her playwriting to telling stories of those underrepresented (or not represented at all) across the arts, providing an unmatched lesson in the importance of reconciling research with personal connection to the material for a performance. A family drama of epic proportions, that is simultaneously an incredibly funny comedy God of Carnage really does have it all going on. Told in hindsight by its protagonist, the entire piece unfolds having been filtered through his id and worldview. The production is so successful because it’s so inherently ‘theatre’ – the stylised, physical language of the play gives us a beautiful glimpse at the world through Christopher’s eyes, as he struggles to make sense of the titular “curious incident” and its associated mysteries. Three twenty somethings have to deal with the reality of life setting in, as the parties and drugs and drinking become as stale and mundane as the jobs they have and the lives that stretch out before them. While improving at a snail’s pace, the American theater is shamefully disproportionate when it comes to representation. Your email address will not be published. Set in the lobby of a Mid-Town hotel, Jeff an ex-military man now security guard must contend with his overbearing boss, an incredibly attractive rookie cop who takes exactly zero per cent of his crap and her intense, manipulative partner. McDonagh is one of the all-time playwriting greats. With an original cast of Martin Freeman, Tasmin Greig and Rachel Stirling, the play was a huge hit. We all work together to contribute useful articles and resources for actors at all stages in their careers. Share 2. By Emily Temple. Oh man, this play is hilarious. Following the success of The State of Things and Fat Pig, Reasons to be Pretty is the third of LaBute’s works to investigate body image. She spends her days making the perfect devilled eggs, mixing the perfect Screwdrivers and being the perfect homemaker to her husband Johnny. She journeys down into the strange world of Dissocia where the people and troubles in her real life manifest as the bizarre creatures and citizens of this new world. Put simply, David Mamet is the man. Every actor stepping into this piece is required to understand their physicality and expression in a way they have never before done in a play, which is of use for all future acting endeavors. These works are vital to the larger cultural conversation and demonstrate time and again why art is irreplaceable in a society. In fact, it actually means the 21st-century now-ness of the very funny and very sad play calls for a new style of onstage affectation. Conclusion. Theatre continues to grow and evolve as an artform and contrary to what you may have learned studying drama in high school, some of the greatest works to grace the stages of the world have been written this century. Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields (2015). Required fields are marked *. The only play on this list I haven’t personally read, The Humans was nominated for a Pulitzer prize in Drama, and won the Tony award for Best Play. It’s a raw, brutal story full of heart. When she's not writing about television, film, or theater, she is definitely somewhere watching it. Because of the rise of underground and independent theatre, these modern works are beautifully suited to smaller companies, found spaces and intimate theatres, which is important when making theatre on a budget! They’re totally happy with their pastel-hued life. To understand what makes “Curious Incident” so notable, you only need to know that it was nominated for a choreography Tony Award when it premiered on Broadway, a feat reached by very few nonmusicals. 2 Shares. This incredible play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2017. You know that acting is as much what is said as what is not, and bringing to life the literal blank pages of this very human Bess Wohl triumph will require any actor to acknowledge as much. In its very essence, “Small Mouth Sounds” deserves to be marveled at: a two-hour drama that contains almost no spoken dialogue. Leading the charge is Lynn Nottage, whose “Ruined” received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for drama and which follows the fraught lives of women surviving in the Democratic Republic of Congo. David Lindsay-Abaire won the Pulitzer prize for this fantastic piece of writing – and it has since been adapted into the film directed by John Cameron Mitchell and starring Nicole Kidman. This play blew me away when I saw it for the first time a few years ago. However, when heavy-handed activism is embedded, a piece runs the risk of losing its ethos—that’s where depth of performance is crucial. This hilarious and uncomfortably real four hander deals with relationships, infidelity, heartbreak and the need to feel attractive. The dramatic comedy, which traverses through 20th-century epochs, also famously features a lengthy Act 2 monologue for its titular protagonist on which every dramatic actor should cut her teeth.