Suggested Reading
The following is a list of plays and books we suggest that theatre students read during their college careers. The list is not exhaustive but touches upon most works thought to be seminal. 100 of these works are in bold face to indicate their relative importance.
At least one play should be read every week, including summers. Obviously, a good number of these plays will be encountered in both classes and production work.
All students should develop a facility for using the library and other research resources as early as possible.
In order to retain information for future reference, students are advised to keep a computer file, journal, or file of index cards with the following information for all plays read in and out of class:
- Title
- Playwright
- Year written
- First Performance
- Style and Genre
- Principle Characters
- Plot Synopsis (50-60 words)
- Brief Analysis (statement of theme, or central action, or main dramatic question)
- Significance
Plays
| Aeschylus | The Oresteia |
| Albee, Edward | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance |
| Anderson, Maxwell | Winterset |
| Anonymous | The Second Shepherd's Play, Everyman |
| Anouilh, Jean | Antigone |
| Ansky, S. | The Dybbuk |
| Arden, John | Serjeant Musgrave's Dance |
| Aristophanes | The Birds, The Frogs , Lysistrata |
| Baraka, Imaru | Slave Ship, The Dutchman |
| Beckett, Samuel | Endgame, Waiting for Godot , Krapp's Last Tape |
| Behan, Brendan | The Hostage |
| Behn, Aphra | The Rover |
| Bolt, Robert | A Man for All Seasons |
| Brecht, Bertolt | Baal, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Mother Courage, Threepenny Opera, Galileo |
| Büchner, Georg | Danton's Death, Woyzeck |
| Calderón de la Barca, Pedro | Life is a Dream |
| Camus, Albert | Caligula |
| Capek, Karel | RUR |
| Chekhov, Anton | Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, The Three Sisters, Ivanov, Uncle Vanya |
| Churchill, Caryl | Top Girls, Cloud Nine |
| Cocteau, Jean | The Infernal Machine |
| Congreve, William | The Way of the World |
| Corneille, Pierre | Le Cid |
| Coward, Noel | Blithe Spirit, Private Lives |
| Dürrenmatt, Friedrich | The Physicists, The Visit |
| Eliot, T. S. | Murder in the Cathedral |
| Euripides | The Bacchae, Trojan Women, Medea |
| Farquhar, George | The Recruiting Officer, The Beaux' Strategem |
| Feydeau, Georges | A Flea in Her Ear |
| Fo, Dario | Accidental Death of an Anarchist |
| Fornés, María Irene | The Conduct of Life |
| Frisch, Max | The Firebugs |
| Fugard, Anthol | Master Harold and the Boys, Sizwe Banzi is Dead |
| García Lorca, Federico | Blood Wedding, House of Bernarda Alba |
| Genet, Jean | The Balcony, The Maids |
| Giraudoux, Jean | Tiger at the Gates, The Madwoman of Chaillot |
| Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von | Faust |
| Gogol, Nicolai | The Government Inspector |
| Goldsmith, Oliver | She Stoops to Conquer |
| Goldoni, Carlo | The Servant of Two Masters |
| Gorky, Maxim | The Lower Depths |
| Handke, Peter | Kaspar |
| Hansberry, Lorraine | A Raisin in the Sun |
| Hellman, Lillian | The Little Foxes, Toys in the Attic |
| Hochhuth; Rolf | The Deputy |
| Horváth, Õdön von | Tales from the Vienna Woods |
| Hwang, David Henry | Golden Child |
| Ibsen, Henrik | A Doll's House, An Enemy of the People, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts |
| Inge, William | Come Back Little Sheba, Bus Stop, Picnic |
| Ionesco, Eugene | Bald Soprano, Rhinoceros , The Chairs |
| Jarry, Alfred | Ubu Roi |
| Jonson, Ben | Volpone, The Alchemist |
| Kaufmann and Hart | You Can't Take it With You, The Man Who Came to Dinner |
| Kaufmann, Moisés | The Laramie Project |
| Kushner, Tony | Angels in America, A Bright Room Called Day |
| Kyd, Thomas | The Spanish Tragedy |
| Lilo, George | The London Merchant |
| McCullers, Carson | A Member of the Wedding |
| MacLeish, Archibald | J. B. |
| Mamet, David | A Life in the Theatre, American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna |
| Marlowe, Christopher | Dr. Faustus, The Jew of Malta |
| McDonagh, Martin | The Beauty Queen of Leenane |
| Miller, Arthur | The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge, All My Sons |
| Molière | Tartuffe, The Miser , The School for Wives, The Misanthrope |
| Müller, Heiner | Hamletmachine |
| Nichols, Peter | Joe Egg |
| Norman, Marsha | Getting Out, 'Night Mother |
| O'Casey, Sean | Juno and the Paycock, The Plough and the Stars |
| O'Neill, Eugene | Anna Christie, Emperor Jones , The Iceman Cometh, A Long Day's Journey into the Night, Desire Under the Elms |
| Odets, Clifford | Awake and Sing!, Waiting for Lefty |
| Orton, Joe | What the Butler Saw |
| Osborne, Joh | Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer |
| Pinero, Arthur Wing | The Schoolmistress |
| Pinter, Harold | Dumb Waiter, The Birthday Party, Homecoming, Betrayal, The Caretaker |
| Pirandello, Luigi | Six Characters in Search of an Author |
| Plautus | The Twin Menaechmi |
| Rabe, David | Streamers |
| Racine | Andromanque, Phaedre |
| Rice, Elmer | The Adding Machine |
| Rostand, Edmund | Cyrano de Bergerac |
| Saroyan, William | The Time of Your Life |
| Sartre, Jean Paul | No Exit, The Flies |
| Schnitzler; Arthur | La Ronde |
| Shakespeare, William | A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, King Henry IV - Part I, King Lear, Macbeth, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Julius Caesar, Merchant of Venice |
| Shange, Ntozake | For Colored girls Who Have Considered Suicide |
| Shaw, George Bernard | Candida, Heartbreak House, Pygmalion, The Arms and the Man, St. Joan, Man and Superman |
| Shepard, Sam | Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, True West, Angel City |
| Sheridan, Richard | The School for Scandal |
| Simon, Neil | Good Doctor, Biloxi Blues, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite |
| Sophocles | Oedipus the King, Electra, Antigone, Philoctetes |
| Stoppard, Tom | Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead, Arcadia, The Real Thing |
| Strindberg, August | A Dream Play, Miss Julie |
| Synge, John Millington | The Playboy of the Western World |
| Thomas, Dylan |
Under Milkwood |
| Tourneur, Cyril | The Revenger's Tragedy |
| Vogel, Paula | How I Learned to Drive |
| Wasserstein, Wendy | The Sisters Rosensweig |
| Webster, John | The Duchess of Malfi |
| Wedekind, Frank | Spring's Awakening, Pandora's Box, Earth Spirit |
| Weiss, Peter | The Assassination and Persecution of Jean Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade |
| Wilde, Oscar | The Importance of Being Earnest |
| Wilder, Thornton | Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth |
| Williams, Tennessee | A Streetcar Named Desire, Night of the Iguana, The Glass Menagerie, Camino Real |
| Wilson, August | Fences, The Piano Lesson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom |
| Wilson, Lanford | Fifth of July, Rimers of Eldrich |
| Wycherley, William | The Country Wife |
The following list of theatre books covers most aspects of theatre study. Many of these are indispensiple additions to any theatre student's library. Most of these can be found in Scribner Library and many are available in paperback editions.
Books
| Adler, Stella | The Technique of Acting |
| Aristotle | The Poetics |
| Aronson, Arnold | American Set Design |
| Artaud, Antonin | The Theatre and it's Double |
| Ball, William | A Sense of Direction |
| Bartow, Arthur | The Director's Voice |
| Bay, Howard | Stage Design |
| Beckerman, Bernard | Dynamics of Drama: Theory and Method of Analysis |
| Benedetti, Robert | The Director at Work |
| Bentley, Eric | The Playwright as Thinker, The Life of the Drama |
| Berry, Cicely | The Actor and the Text |
| Bloom, Harold | Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human |
| Bogart, Anne | Viewpoints |
| Boleslavski, Richard | Acting: The First Six Lessons |
| Brecht, Bertolt | Brecht on Theatre |
| Brockett, Oscar | History of the Theatre |
| Brook, Peter | The Empty Space, Threads of Time, The Open Door |
| Bruder, Melissa | The Practical Handbook of the Actor |
| Brustein, Robert | The Theatre of Revolt, Letters to a Young Actor |
| Burris-Meyer/Cole | Scenery for the Theatre |
| Chaikin, Joseph | The Presence of the Actor |
| Chekhov, Michael | To The Director and Playwright, To the Actor |
| Clurman, Harold | On Directing |
| Cole, Susan | Directors in Rehearsal |
| Cole, Toby | Directors on Directing |
| Corson, Richard | Stage Makeup |
| Craig, Edward Gordon | The Art of the Theatre |
| Dukore, Bernard | Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Greeks to Grotowski |
| Esslin, Martin | An Anatomy of Drama, Brecht, Theatre of the Absurd |
| Farber, Donald | From Option to Opening, Producing Theatre |
| Gillette, J. Michael | Theatre Design and Production |
| Goldman, William | The Season |
| Gorelik, Mordechai | New Theatres for Old |
| Grotowski, Jerzy | Towards a Poor Theatre |
| Hagen, Uta | Respect for Acting , A Challenge for the Actor |
| Hays, David | Light in the Subject |
| Hodge, Francis | Play Directing |
| Hull, Loraine | Strasberg's Method |
| Jones, David | Great Directors at Work |
| Jones, Robert Edmond | The Dramatic Imagination |
| Langley, Stephen | Theatre Management in America |
| Lewis, Robert | Advice to the Players |
| Linklater, Kirstin | Freeing the Natural Voice |
| Mamet, David | Writing in Restaurants, True and False |
| Marranca, Bonnie | Theatre of Images |
| Meisner, Stanford | On Acting |
| Moore, Sonia | The Stanislavsky System |
| Parker & Smith | Scene Design and Stage Lighting |
| Pecktell, Lynn | Designing and Painting for the Theatre |
| Pilbrow, Richard | Stage Lighting |
| Roose-Evans, James | Experimental Theatre |
| Rosenthal, Jean | The Magic of Light |
| Rudlin, John | Commedia Dell' Arte: An Actor's Handbook |
| Russell, Douglas | Stage Costume Design |
| Schechner, Richard | Environmental Theatre, The End of Humanism |
| Simonson, Lee | The Stage is Set |
| Southern, Richard | The Seven Ages of the Theatre |
| Spolin, Viola | Improvisation for the Theatre |
| Stanislavski, Konstantin | An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, Creating a Role, My Life in Art |
| Styan, J. L. | Modern Drama in Theory and Practice |
| Stern, Lawrence | Stage Management |
| Suzuki, Tadashi | The Way of Acting |
| Watson and McKernie | A Cultural History of the Theatre |
| Willett, John | The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht |