Best female playwright?

Who would your vote go to?

Lorraine Hansberry, perhaps?

Paula Vogel

Wendy Wasserstein

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Marsha Norman!

dael orlandersmith

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Maria Irene Fornes

Interesting mentions so far:

I would consider Caryl Churchill the most versatile and gifted female playwright in the history of the English-speaking theatre (she's frankly one of the top 5 living playwrights of either gender).

I think "A Raisin In The Sun" might arguably be the finest play ever written by a female playwright -- it's criminal Hansberry died so young.

I know all of Vogel's work quite well -- "How I Learned To Drive" is her most technically accomplished work, but most (not all) of her other work, though always interesting, is structurally flawed and incomplete.

Hellman wrote a bunch of overbaked melodramas that haven't stood the test of time -- other than Little Foxes does anyone produce Hellman anymore?

I wouldn't call Eve Ensler a playwright -- more of a journalist/performance artist (same with Anna Deveare Smith).

Marsha Norman has exactly one play, "Night Mother" that ever gets produced and as the last revival pointed out -- it's a pretty hackneyed piece of work heavily reliant on the actors (miscast them and it's a pretty banal play). I suppose her book for Secret Garden is also noteworthy.

Wasserstein has Heidi Chronicles (rather sitcomish and didactic) and lightning hasn't managed to strike again since. Perhaps that'll change with "Three" that starts at LCT this month.

Dael Orlandersmith is EXTREMELY promising.

No one mentioned Suzan-Lori Parks who is one of the most interesting talents to emerge in the past decade or two. She's experimental and writes like no one else. It doesn't always work, but when it does, the results are dazzling.

Maria Irene Fornes is one of the most influential playwrights of the past several decades with many etablished playwrights crediting her as an influence (Tony Kushner for one).

Tina Howe had a promising career at one point.

For the sake of completeness, I'll mention Beth Henley, another one hit wonder (Pulitzer for "Crimes of the Heart"); Ntosake Shange ("For Colored Girls" still retains it's power 30 years later and is produced 1000+ times a year; not really a playwright but a monologist and poet and she's never been able to follow up her initial success.

There's the underrated Jane Wagner whose "Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe" is a masterpiece (as were the earlier plays she wrote for Tomlin). Not a play in a conventional sense, but stunning writing nonetheless.

There's Diana Son, Cheryl West, Sarah Ruhl, Lisa Kron, Regina Taylor, Sarah Schulman, Melissa James Gibson, to mention a few, are all talents to really watch.

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Updated On: 9/8/05 at 02:39 PM

I'm a hardcore fan of Wendy MacLeod

Jane Martin is also top quality.

Lillian Hellman

Wow...no one has mentioned Rebecca Gilman!!!

Even Margo forgot her!

I don't see anyone writing the kind of stuff she writes. She is unmatched with character, structure, and social comment. A real gem of a writer.

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Not to mention Blue Surge (one of my favorite plays of all time).

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Quality over quantity.

They are all underrepresented on stage, so

is it really any wonder that

few have been able to create a large body of work?

I'll give you Sisters Rosensweig (though it's not a favorite of mine) but I'm just not a fan of Wasserstein's other work which seems like glorified sitcom writing to me (and if we're counting hits, remember American Daughter was a major flop).

Some of the others are a matter of taste. I'm not alone in my admiration of Churchill who's career is now in, I believe its 4th decade (and not all of her work is surreal and avant garde -- it's gotten more so over the years). Fornes is avant garde and has never had popular acceptance, but she's a writer's writer and the list of her acolytes is large and quite formidable. Parks is still a work in progress, but she's already created a couple of works that will stand the test of time.

I don't know how much legacy Hellman has any more since she's almost never produced. She's sort of like Elmer Rice, Maxwell Anderson, Robert Sherwood and Clifford Odets -- major award-winning playwrights from the first half of the 20th century whose work is rarely seen or even read anymore.

I've always wondered why so few successful playwrights historically have been women, both here and in England. I really don't have a good answer for it, given that the majority of the audience (on Broadway at least) is female, as are so many of the artistic directors. Perhaps it's a financial issue. Unless you're independently wealthy (like Albee, Sondheim, et al) it's very difficult to be a writer and keep a roof over your head as you develop your work. Most successful playwrights had parents or a significant other willing to support them for years while they wrote. Perhaps fewer women have been able to swing such an arrangement. I really don't know. But, it certainly is odd.

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