Department of
Theater, Film, and Media Studies

Core Play-Reading List for Theater Studies Majors

Before graduating from St. Mary's College of Maryland, TFMS theater studies majors should read the following 65 plays, which exemplify the historical and cultural variety of dramatic literature. The list includes plays that are representative of significant dramaturgies and will provide a basis for further reading in these periods and cultures.

CLASSICAL DRAMA (GREECE AND ROME)

Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.)
The Oresteia (includes: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides)

Sophocles (c.496-406 B.C.)
Oedipus Rex

Euripides (c.485-406 B.C.)
The Bacchae

Aristophanes (c.448-c.380 B.C.)
The Birds

Plautus (c.254-c.184 B.C.)
The Twin Menaechmi

Seneca (c.5 B.C.-65 A.D.)
Thyestes

DRAMA OF EASTERN CULTURES

(as recorded by Valmiki in The Ramayana, c. 400-200 BCE)
The Reincarnation of Rama (a Javanese shadow puppet play, in On Thrones of Gold, trans. James R. Brandon, 1970)

(Indian Hindu epic, c. 350 CE)
The Mahabharata (see also: Peter Brook film of the same)

Sudraka (Indian Sanskrit, 8th C.)
The Little Clay Cart (Mrcchakatikâ)

Tang Xianzu (Chinese Kunqu play, 1598)
Peony Pavilion

Namiki Sosuke (Japanese kabuki play, 1751)
The Chronicle of the Battle of Ichinotani

(Japanese noh play, 1753)
Dojoji

MEDIEVAL DRAMA

Hrotsvit von Gandersheim (10th c. German-Saxon nun)
Dulcitius

Anonymous
The Second Shepherd's Play (in the Wakefield Cycle, 15th c.)
Everyman (c.1500 A.D.)

ITALIAN COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
The Mandrake

ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN DRAMA

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Doctor Faustus

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Henry IV, Part I
As You Like It
King Lear
The Tempest

Ben Jonson (1573-1637)
Volpone

John Webster (c.1580-c.1630)
The Duchess of Malfi

SPANISH GOLDEN AGE DRAMA

Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (Lope de Vega, 1562-1635)
Fuente Ovejuna

Pedro Calderon de la Barca (Calderon, 1600-1681)
Life is a Dream

FRENCH NEO-CLASSICAL DRAMA

Molière (Jean Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-1673)
Tartuffe

Jean Racine (1639-1699)
Phaedra

RESTORATION AND EIGHTEEENTH CENTURY ANGLO-EUROPEAN DRAMA

John Dryden (1631-1700)
All For Love

Aphra Behn (1640-1689)
The Rover

William Wycherley (1640-1715)
The Country Wife

George Lillo (1693-1739)
The London Merchant

Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793)
La Locandiera (The Mistress of the Inn, a.k.a. Mirandolina)

Pierre de Beaumarchais (1732-1799)
The Marriage of Figaro

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Faust, Part I

MODERN ANGLO-EUROPEAN DRAMA

Georg Buchner (1813-1837)
Woyzeck

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
Peer Gynt
Ghosts

August Strindberg (1849-1912)
A Dream Play

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Heartbreak House

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
The Three Sisters

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
Six Characters in Search of an Author

Alfred Jarry (1873-1907)
Ubu Roi

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
The Good Person of Setzuan

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)
Waiting for Godot

Jean Genet (1910-1986)
The Maids

Peter Weiss (1916-1982)
Marat/Sade

Friedrich Durrenmatt (1921-1990)
The Visit

Harold Pinter (1932- )
Old Times

Caryl Churchill (1938- )
Cloud Nine

Naomi Wallace (1960- )
One Flea Spare

DRAMA OF AFRICAN CULTURES

Athol Fugard (South African, 1932- )
Blood Knot

Wole Soyinka (Nigerian, 1934- )
Death and the King's Horseman

DRAMA OF AMERICAN CULTURES

Eugene O'Neill (1888-1954)
Long Day's Journey into Night

Sophie Treadwell (1891-1970)
Machinal

Thornton Wilder (1897-1976)
The Skin of Our Teeth

Arthur Miller (1915-2005)
Death of a Salesman

Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965)
A Raisin in the Sun

Maria Irene Fornes (1930- )
Fefu and Her Friends

Luis Valdez (1940- )
Zoot Suit

August Wilson (1945-2005)
Fences

Henry David Hwang (1957- )
M. Butterfly

Holly Hughes (1955- ), Peggy Shaw (1945- ), and Lois Weaver (1950- )
Dress Suits for Hire

Tony Kushner (1956- )
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches

Anna Deavere Smith (1950- )
Fires in the Mirror

Suzan-Lori Parks (1963- )
Venus

Compiled by J. Klein, 11/91; revised by the TFMS department, 5/05
Updated, 6/10

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