Pulitzer Prize for Drama Reading List

[DMsquared2]

Posted: 3/23/10 at 10:32pm

've decided I'm going to read every play that's ever won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. I'm not going to set an unreasonable time frame so let's say between now and my 30th birthday.

Fortunately there are some I have already read and/or seen. They are:

Our Town [1938]
A Streetcar Named Desire [1948]
Death of a Salesman (1949)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
The Diary of Anne Frank (1956)
Long Day's Journey into Night (1957)
No Place to Be Somebody (1970)
That Championship Season (1973)
Buried Child (1979)
Crimes of the Heart (1981)
'night Mother (1983)
Fences (1987)
The Heidi Chronicles (1989)
The Piano Lesson (1990)
Angels in America; Millenium Approaches (1993)
Proof (2001)
Topdog/Underdog (2002)
Anna in the Tropics (2003)
I Am My Own Wife (2004)
Doubt (2005)
Rabbit Hole (2007)
August: Osage County [2008]

The following are out of print:

Icebound (1923)
Hell-Bent fer Heaven (1924)
They Knew What They Wanted (1925)
Craig's Wife (1926)
In Abraham's Bosom (1927)
Alison's House (1931)
Both Your Houses (1933)
Men in White (1934)
The Old Maid (1935)
Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1939)
There Shall Be Night (1941)
State of the Union (1946)
All the Way Home (1961)

No awards were given in:
1919
1942
1944
1947
1951
1963
1964
1966
1968
1972
1974
1986
1997
2006

And the following are musicals which won:

Of Thee I Sing (1932)
South Pacific (1950)
Fiorello! (1960)
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1962)
A Chorus Line (1976)
Sunday in the Park with George (1985)
Rent (1996)

This leaves the following list:

Why Marry? [1918]
Beyond the Horizon (1920)
Miss Lulu Bett (1921)
Anna Christie (1922)
Strange Interlude [1928]
Street Scene (1929)
The Green Pastures (1930)
Idiot's Delight (1936)
You Can't Take it With You (1937)
The Time of Your Life (1940)
The Skin of Our Teeth (1943)
Harvey (1945)
The Shrike (1952)
Picnic (1953)
The Teahouse of August Moon (1954)
Look Homeward, Angel [1958]
J.B. (1959)
The Subject Was Roses (1965)
A Delicate Balance (1967)
The Great White Hope (1969)
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1971)
Seascape (1973)
The Shadow Box (1977)
The Gin Game [1978]
Talley's Folly (1980)
A Soldier's Play (1982)
Glennharry Glenn Ross (1984)
Driving Miss Daisy [1988]
Lost in Yonkers (1991)
The Kentucky Cycle (1992)
Three Tall Women (1994)
The Young Man From Atlanta (1995)
How I Learned to Drive [1998]
Wit (1999)
Dinner with Friends (2000)
Ruined (2009)

For a complete list you can go to:
http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Drama

[WOSQ]

Posted: 3/24/10 at 10:00am

This is a worthy and ambitious enterprise.

As for the out of print ones, try abebooks.com, a used book site, or a good used book store like the Strand, strandbooks.com. There was an anthology of Pulitzer winners published in the 50s. Who knows what was included.

Some of them have film adaptations (The Old Maid, All the Way Home and State of the Union for instance) and might be on dvd or video. Craig's Wife was turned into the Joan Crawford film Harriet Craig.

Abe Lincoln in Illinois was done at Lincoln Center maybe 10 years ago so there could be editions around. There Shall Be Night was a major success for the Lunts and ought to have some editions around. Have you tried Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service? And of course, the Lincoln Center branch of the library.

I read somewhere that They Knew What They Wanted just doesn't exist. A film was made but I don't know much more than that. It is the source for The Most Happy Fella. For some reason, I think I have a copy of Icebound somewhere. (Note the qualifying word, 'somewhere'.)

All of the musicals have been published except How To Succeed so if you want to read them, the scripts are out there. I have them in some edition or other.

Good luck. Have fun. There is a good masters thesis topic in there someplace.

[DMsquared2]

Posted: 3/24/10 at 5:55pm

Thanks for the feedback, WOSQ.

My university's library has most of the out of print plays for the exception of Icebound, In Abraham's Bosom, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, and There Shall Be Night.

I don't want to buy any of the plays if I don't have to so I'll look into Sam French and Dramatists but I'm a college student so I'm not going to spend too much.