Jeff Bengford’s List of
The Top 50+ Most Important Plays in Theatre History
as of 2/9/05
(the space breaks indicate a theatrical period)
441BC Sophocles’ Antigone
431BC Sophocles’ Medea
425BC Sophocles’ Oedipus
415 BC Euripedes’ The Trojan Women
410 BC Aristophanes’ Lysistrata
1495 Everyman
1588 Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus
1595 Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
1601 Shakespeare’s Hamlet
1605 Cervantes’ Don Quixote
1606 Johnson’s Valpone
1613 Shakespeare’s The Tempest
1618 DeVega’s Fuente Ovejuna
1636 Calderon’s LIfe is a Dream
1664 Moliere’s Tartuffe
1675 Wycherly’s The Country Wife
1677 Racine’s Phaedre
1700 Congreve’s The Way of the World
1728 Gay's The Beggar's Opera
1879 Ibsen’s A Doll ‘s House
1890 Ibsen’s Hedda Gabbler
1895 Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
1901 Chekhov’s Three Sisters
1904 Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard
1907 Strindberg’s A Dream Play
1909 Goldsmith’s She Stoops To Conquer
1921 Pirandello’s Six Charactors in Search of an Author
1927 Kern and Hammerstein’sShow Boat
1932 Ziegfield’s Ziegfield Follies
1933 Lorca’s Blood Wedding
1936 Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You
1938 Wilder’s Our Town
1936 Kaufman and Hart’s The Man Who Came to Dinner
1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma
1944 Williams’ The Glass Menagerie
1947 Miller’s All My Sons
William’s A Streetcar Named Desire
1950 Loesser’s Guys and Dolls
1950 Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano
1951 Shaw’s Pygmalion
1954 Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle
1956 Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady
1957 O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night
Beckett’s Waiting for Godot
Bernstein’s West Side Story
1958 Ionesco’s Rhinoceros
Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun
1962 Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1964 Block’s Fiddler on the Roof
Herman’s Hello, Dolly!
1966 Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret
1967 Rado & Ragni’s Hair
1968 Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
1970 Pinter’s Old Times
1975 Brown’s The Wiz
1976 Kirkwood and Dante’s A Chorus Line
1977 Mamet’s American Buffalo
1979 Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd
1980 Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God
Shepard’s True West
1981 Webber’s Cats
1983 Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy
Herman’s La Cage Aux Folles
1984 Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep
1987 Hugo’s Les Miserables
Wilson’s Fences
1988 D.H. Whang’s M. Butterfly
1989 Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles
1990 Sondheim’s Assassins
1991 Simon’s Lost in Yonkers
1993 Kushner’s Angels in America
Stoppard’s Arcadia
Hampton & Webber’s Sunset Boulevard
1994 McNalley’s Love, Valor, Compassion
1995 Disney’s Beauty and the Beast
1997 Larson’s RENT
1998 Taymor’s The Lion King
2001 Frayn’s Copenhagen
Auburn’s Proof
2002 Kotis’ Urinetown, the Musical
Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses
Parks’ Topdog/Underdog
2003 Kotis & Hollmann’s Urinetown
2004 Whitty, Lopez and Marx’s Avenue Q
