Great American Playwrights
Playwright↕ | Years↕ | Signature Play↕ | Pulitzer Prizes↕ | Known For↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Eugene O'Neill | 1888-1953 | Long Day's Journey Into Night | 4 | Only American playwright to win Nobel Prize in Literature (1936), autobiographical tragedy |
Tennessee Williams | 1911-1983 | A Streetcar Named Desire | 2 | Southern Gothic lyricism, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, tortured characters |
Arthur Miller | 1915-2005 | Death of a Salesman | 1 | The Crucible as McCarthyism allegory, married Marilyn Monroe, moral seriousness |
August Wilson | 1945-2005 | Fences | 2 | Pittsburgh/Century Cycle — 10 plays, one per decade of Black American life in the 20th century |
Edward Albee | 1928-2016 | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | 3 | Absurdism, Zoo Story debut, A Delicate Balance, Three Tall Women, contentious marriage plays |
Thornton Wilder | 1897-1975 | Our Town | 3 | Our Town's bare stage, The Skin of Our Teeth, also won Pulitzer for fiction (Bridge of San Luis Rey) |
Lorraine Hansberry | 1930-1965 | A Raisin in the Sun | 0 | First Black woman to have play on Broadway, youngest American to win Drama Critics Circle Award |
David Mamet | 1947- | Glengarry Glen Ross | 1 | Profane rapid-fire dialogue (Mamet-speak), American Buffalo, Oleanna, screenplays |
Sam Shepard | 1943-2017 | Buried Child | 1 | True West, Fool for Love, Curse of the Starving Class, also actor, American family dysfunction |
Tony Kushner | 1956- | Angels in America | 1 | Angels two-part epic on AIDS in Reagan era, Lincoln and Munich screenplays |
Neil Simon | 1927-2018 | The Odd Couple | 1 | Broadway comedy king, Brighton Beach Memoirs trilogy, Barefoot in the Park, Lost in Yonkers |
Lanford Wilson | 1937-2011 | Talley's Folly | 1 | Circle Rep co-founder, Hot l Baltimore, Fifth of July, lyrical Americana |
Paula Vogel | 1951- | How I Learned to Drive | 1 | Indecent, Baltimore Waltz, Brown and Yale playwriting teacher to generation |
Suzan-Lori Parks | 1963- | Topdog/Underdog | 1 | First Black woman to win Pulitzer for Drama, 365 Days/365 Plays project |
Lynn Nottage | 1964- | Sweat | 2 | Only woman to win two Pulitzers for Drama (Ruined and Sweat), MFA Columbia, documentary roots |
David Henry Hwang | 1957- | M. Butterfly | 0 | First Asian American to win Tony for Best Play, Chinglish, Yellow Face, librettist |
Horton Foote | 1916-2009 | The Young Man from Atlanta | 1 | Orphans Home Cycle (9 plays), To Kill a Mockingbird screenplay, Texas-set Americana |
Beth Henley | 1952- | Crimes of the Heart | 1 | Southern Gothic comedies, Mississippi sisters, youngest woman to win Pulitzer for Drama at the time |
Stephen Adly Guirgis | 1965- | Between Riverside and Crazy | 1 | LAByrinth Theater, Jesus Hopped the A Train, streetwise NYC voice |
Annie Baker | 1981- | The Flick | 1 | Naturalistic pauses, Circle Mirror Transformation, Shirley VT plays, hyper-real dialogue |
Free to explore · No signup needed
Frequently asked questions
How is the Great American Playwrights list ranked?
The Great American Playwrights list is currently sorted by the source data's default ordering. Community voting is not enabled on this dataset.
How many entries are in this Great American Playwrights dataset?
This dataset contains 20 entries, each with multiple sortable, filterable columns. The full table is visible on this page and can be downloaded as a CSV, JSON, or Excel file.
Can I download the Great American Playwrights data?
Yes. The download buttons at the top of the page give you the full 20-row dataset as CSV, JSON, or Excel. Use of the data is permitted under a Creative Commons Attribution license — credit dtbse.com when you republish.
Related Datasets
More in People
Famous Astronomers
Notable astronomers throughout history.
Famous Vikings
The legendary Norse raiders, explorers and kings — Ragnar, Leif Erikson, Harald Hardrada and the warriors who shaped the Viking Age.
Famous Philanthropists
Notable philanthropists and their contributions.
Child Prodigies in History
Mozart composing at 5, Pascal proving geometry at 12, Terence Tao doing calculus at 9 - whose early genius astonishes most?
Virtuoso Violinists
Heifetz, Perlman, Hahn, Mutter — who owns the bow arm?
Nobel Peace Prize Winners
All Nobel Peace Prize laureates and organizations.
US First Ladies
Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Michelle Obama - which First Lady left the deepest mark?
Famous Mixologists
Dale DeGroff, Audrey Saunders, Sasha Petraske - cocktail royalty who rebuilt the bar.
Famous Pirates
Notable pirates throughout history.
Renaissance Artists
The master painters and sculptors of the Italian Renaissance — who truly settled the Da Vinci vs Michelangelo rivalry?
Abstract Expressionists
The New York School painters who redefined American art after WWII — Pollock, Rothko, De Kooning and the canvas-shaking giants of Abstract Expressionism.
Impressionist Painters
The pioneers of Impressionism who broke from academic tradition — Monet, Renoir, Degas and the movement that changed painting forever.