LibGuides: Diversity in Theatre: Women

Playwrights

Women Playwrights

Here are just a few of many women playwrights. Click to see a list of their writings in our library.

Caryl Churchill
Lorraine Hansberry
Lillian Hellman
Joy Harjo

Young Jean Lee
Dominique Morisseau
Lynn Nottage
Wendy Wasserstein

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Use the resources here to find more women playwrights.
Then, search an author's name in our catalog. Change the search from Keyword to Author to find their scripts.

BIPOC Playwrights Project
Directory of BIPOC playwrights of the 20th and 21st centuries with English-language works. Includes a filter for womxn.
The Kilroys List
Annual lists of plays by women, trans, and non-binary writers.
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalists
List of finalists 1978-present for the premiere playwriting prize for female playwrights.

Organizations

Women's Theatre Organizations

The International Centre for Women Playwrights
Promotes women playwrights with grants, peer support, and more.
League of Professional Theatre Women
Advocates for parity and recognition for women theatre professionals.
WOW Café Theater
A year-round festival of women’s and transgender peoples’ performance, based in NYC.
WP Theater
Empowers women artists with publishing, mentorships, workshops, commissioning and staging productions, and more.

Research

Online Resources

Dictionary of Literary Biography This link opens in a new window
Essays on world literary figures. Search a playwright's name to find their essay.

Women's Theatre Books in the Library (selections)

All Change Please by Lucy Kerbel
Publication Date: 2017
Available online.
Why gender equality matters, its benefits—artistic, commercial, ethical, and social—and how, with everyone's help, we can actually achieve it.
Black Women Playwrights by Carol P. Marsh-Lockett (Editor)
Call Number: PS338.N4 B57 1999 [Mortensen shelves]
Essays that reveal the wide range and complexity of African American women playwrights who have been critically neglected in scholarship.
Readings in Renaissance Women's Drama by S. P. Cerasano, Marion Wynne-Davies (Editors)
Call Number: PR658.W6 R43 1998 [Mortensen shelves]
Key critical commentaries and historical essays on Renaissance women's drama.
Theatre and Feminism by Kim Solga
Call Number: PN1590.W64 S65 2016 [Mortensen shelves]
Tells the story of the movement known as feminist performance theory.
Women Who Write Plays by Alexis Greene (Editor)
Call Number: PS352 .W66 2001 [Mortensen shelves]
25 interviews with American women dramatists, with insights into their work, thought processes, and personalities.
Women Writing and Directing in the USA by Kiara Pipino
Publication Date: 2020
E-book.
Interviews with 14 successful theatre artists. Insight on what it means and what it takes to be a successful female-identifying playwright and director.

Find More

Search the catalog by subject, for example:

American drama > Women authors
Drama > Women authors
Drama > Women authors > History and criticism
Feminism and theater
Feminism in literature
Feminist theater
Women in the theater

Plays

We have many more plays than those listed here! To find more, search an author's name or play title in the catalog.

Women's Play Anthologies in the Library (selections)

Contemporary Plays by Women of Color by Roberta Uno et al (Editors)
Call Number: PS627.M5 C66 [Mortensen shelves]
1st ed. in print; 2nd ed. in print and online.
Plays from renowned and emerging playwrights.
Plays by Early American Women, 1775-1850 by Amelia Howe Kritzer (Editor)
Call Number: PS628.W6 P595 1995 [Mortensen shelves]
Eight plays in a range of subject and style. Includes historical context, biographies, and bibliography of 1000+ women playwrights.
She Persisted by Lawrence Harbison (Editor)
Call Number: PS628.W6 S44 2021 [Mortensen shelves]
Thirty 10-minute plays by women from Honor Roll!, an advocacy group of women+ playwrights over forty years of age.
Women on the Verge by Rosette C. Lamont (Editor)
Call Number: PS628.W6 W664 1993 [Mortensen shelves]
Seven avant-garde works by controversial American women dramatists.
Women Writing Women by Teresa Cajiao Salas, Margarita Vargas (Editors)
Call Number: PQ7082.D7 W6 1997 [Mortensen shelves]
Eight plays by award-winning Spanish-American women playwrights of the 1980s.

Find More

Use a bibliography (list of plays), for example:

Tagpacker Plays (UC-Irvine)
Browse plays by genre, time period, character genders, playwright demographics, and more.
List includes plays owned by University of California Irvine. Search a title in UHart's catalog to see if we own a copy.

100 Great Plays for Women by Lucy Kerbel (Editor)
Call Number: PN6120.W6 K47 2015 [Mortensen shelves]
Introductions to 100 plays with female performers center stage.

...or, search subjects in the catalog, for example:
American drama > Women authors
Feminism > Drama
Women > Drama

Monologues

Women's Monologue Anthologies in the Library

The Best Women's Stage Monologues (series)
Call Number: PN2080 .B46 [Mortensen shelves]
Annual collections from 1980 to the present. Library holdings: 1995, 1997, 1999, 2011-2020.
The Kilroys List, Vol. 1 by Annah Feinberg (Editor)
Call Number: PN2080 .K45 2017 [Mortensen shelves]
Also available online.
99 monologues from the 2014 and 2015 Kilroys Lists of plays by women and trans playwrights.
Rebel Voices: Monologues for Women by Women by Roisin McBrinn, Lauren Mooney (Editors)
Call Number: PR1246.W65 R43 2019 [Mortensen shelves]
Monologues with a range of characters in age, ethnicity and lived experience.
She Persisted by Lawrence Harbison (Editor)
Call Number: PN2080 .S476 2021 [Mortensen shelves]
100 monologues from plays by members of Honor Roll!, an advocacy group of women+ over forty years of age.

Find More

Search words as subjects in the catalog, for example:
Women + Monologues

Suggest a Resource

Know of a resource you think should be added to this guide? Let us know!

Want to suggest we purchase something new? Contact Tracey Rudnick (rudnick@hartford.edu).