Top 10 Best Playwrights of All Time
These are the writers who gave us the lines we still quote, the characters we still reference, and the plays that still get performed centuries later. From ancient tragedies that shaped the rules of drama to modern scripts that completely ignored those rules, these playwrights knew exactly how to keep audiences hooked. Some wrote about kings and gods, others about salesmen and outcasts, but all of them knew how to get to the heart of what makes people tick.So take a look through the choices and vote for the ones you think earned their spot. Maybe you're a Shakespeare loyalist. Maybe you think newer voices deserve the spotlight. Either way, this is your chance to make your opinion count because when it comes to the stage, everyone's got a favorite.
William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet active during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He authored approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and numerous narrative poems. His works have been translated into every major language and are performed more than those of any other playwright. It's sad so many think Shakespeare is boring. There has been no other playwright who so understood man's strengths and weaknesses. And his command of the English language is unparalleled!
I was recently at a performance of the Scottish play. I was laughing at one part, and no one else got the humor, which was pure wordplay. He was really good at using comic relief to break the tension in an intense drama, and then building up the drama again.
All his plays grasp the human spirit in many ways, and his characters are so memorable that many of us think of them as real people or archetypes. Directors of his plays have interpreted them in various ways, and actors have played the characters in various ways.
The pleasures and enlightenments he gives us are endless and adaptable to any age and point of view.
Samuel Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist and playwright who wrote primarily in French and English. His most notable work, Waiting for Godot, is a seminal example of the Theatre of the Absurd. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. His philosophical insights are simplistic, but he deserves credit for creating a vivid, cartoon-like dramatization of intellectual despair.
The heir to Joyce and one of very few writers to master both the dramatic and epic forms - a nonpareil playwright and novelist.
I never tire of his offbeat wit. I could read and watch his plays over and over and come away with a different feeling every time.
Euripides was a classical Athenian playwright whose works include Medea, The Bacchae, and Hippolytus. He is known for focusing on psychological realism and complex female characters. He lived during the 5th century BCE and wrote over 90 plays, with about 18 surviving in full.
Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director who lived from 1828 to 1906. He is widely credited with helping to develop modernist drama through his realist plays. His major works include A Doll's House, Ghosts, and Hedda Gabler. There's a great bias against Ibsen in the U.S., where he is known primarily for A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler. His many other fine plays (Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, The Master Builder, etc.) are mostly forgotten.
Globally, however, he is one of the most respected and produced playwrights. By their own admissions, Arthur Miller and George Bernard Shaw would have been nobodies had it not been for Ibsen.
Henrik Ibsen, the father of modern drama and creator of A Doll's House, An Enemy of the People, and The Wild Duck, influenced Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw, and August Strindberg. He deserves a higher position on this list.
P.S.
Why is August Strindberg not on this list?
Sophocles was an ancient Greek playwright who lived from approximately 497 to 406 BCE. He wrote over 120 plays, of which only seven complete works survive, including Oedipus Rex and Antigone. He introduced a third actor to the stage and advanced the use of painted scenery. Antigone, the greatest of all plays not written by Shakespeare, is as relevant today as it was then. How far can the state go in overriding family and religious obligations?
One of the rarest dramatists ever. We still couldn't write a play like him today.
Molière, born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, was a French playwright and actor in the 17th century. He is known for his comedic plays, including Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, and The Imaginary Invalid. His works often satirized the hypocrisy of the French aristocracy and clergy. He wrote under a pseudonym to avoid retribution from his critics.
Aeschylus was an ancient Greek tragedian often regarded as the father of tragedy. He is credited with expanding the number of actors on stage and introducing dramatic conflict. His surviving plays include Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides, which form the Oresteia trilogy. He created tragedy and is one of the few whose work has lasted over thousands of years.
The father of tragedy and still unrivaled!
The reek of human blood smiles out at me.
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian playwright, novelist, and short story writer active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for Six Characters in Search of an Author and for challenging traditional notions of identity and reality. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. Since he is Italian, not many people consider him and his deeply innovative and revolutionary ideology. If read and understood with a critical attitude, he turns out to be a genius. Only Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, and probably Ibsen could beat him.
Ah yes, Italians are always overlooked. Just ask Leonardo da Vinci.
Arthur Miller was an American playwright best known for his critiques of social issues in 20th-century American life. His most famous plays include Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and All My Sons. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949. In all my years of high school education (currently a junior), Arthur Miller has been an excellent choice for projects in my AP American Lit class. His books flow like Nutella, unlike the banal, monotone literature received from more "elevated" and "scholarly" playwrights such as Shakespeare.
The Crucible is an absolutely brilliant work. All of Arthur Miller's plays are. I have not read a playwright that I appreciate the way I appreciate him. Even Shakespeare, who I passionately love, has not affected me the way Miller has.
Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright, novelist, and poet who lived during the late 19th century. He is known for his wit and his works such as The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband. He was imprisoned for "gross indecency" due to his homosexuality in 1895. I didn't even care about playwriting until I read "VERA." I was enchanted with the way Oscar Wilde wrote it! Of course, I afterwards kept reading his plays. Amazing, insightful, witty, and undoubtedly one of the best.
This man is the greatest prose writer. He was also a storyteller and writer, including The Model Millionaire.
#29!?!? Inconceivable! Easily one of the greatest playwrights. My top five would be Shakespeare, Beckett, Ibsen, Wilder, and Sophocles.
The Newcomers
Ludvig Holberg was a Danish-Norwegian playwright, historian, and philosopher active in the 18th century. He is often regarded as the founder of modern Danish and Norwegian literature. His best-known comedies include Jeppe of the Hill and The Political Tinker.
Tennessee Williams was an American playwright known for his emotionally charged dramas set in the American South. His most recognized plays include A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Nothing moves me like the plays of Williams. Played by amateurs or professionals, they always seem to work, unlike most other plays. The writing is exquisite, and the drama is compelling!
Yesterday I watched The Glass Menagerie, and that once more confirmed my view of Williams as a great dramatic poet.
The realism in his plays is fantastic. A genuine talent.
Anton Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short story writer active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His notable plays include The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. He helped revolutionize modern drama with his use of subtext and character-driven narratives. Yes, he must be within the top ten very easily. A theatrical equivalent of Rembrandt, he painted human life in darker tones unimaginably well.
Number two behind Will, no question. His ability to use the stage and create dramas, combined with consummate irony, is unparalleled.
Not sure how you can be a master of unending hopes, but he was certainly a great playwright.
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and critic who lived from 1856 to 1950. He wrote more than sixty plays, including Pygmalion, Major Barbara, and Saint Joan. Shaw received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925. Shaw was a towering figure and deserves to be much further up the list.
This writer is especially brilliant in drama literature with the mind of a true genius.
I have always revered his work, apart from the comedies.
He is a better playwright than Shakespeare.
Alexandre Dumas, père, was a 19th-century French writer best known for his adventure novels and historical dramas. He wrote numerous plays early in his career, including Henri III et sa cour and Christine. His theatrical works helped establish his reputation before turning primarily to novels.
Jean Racine was a 17th-century French dramatist known for his tragedies written in alexandrine verse. His most notable works include Phèdre, Andromaque, and Britannicus. Racine served as a royal historiographer under King Louis XIV. Truly the greatest neo-classical writer. His myth-inspired plays combine great sparseness and economy of form with the purity and simple elegance of language in wrenching tragedies inspired by the tremendous passions of heroes and gods.
His greatest plays, Athalie, Phèdre, Iphigénie, Andromaque, and Bérénice, all portraits of major female figures of Greek and Hebraic legend, showcase vibrant energy and magnificently contained emotion.
Known by contemporaries as the Clean Racine.
Noel Coward was a brilliant playwright and had a unique style that has lasted through the ages.
Dialogue like a crisply ironed white shirt.
Neil Simon was a prolific American playwright and screenwriter whose career spanned over five decades. He wrote popular comedies such as The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park, and Lost in Yonkers. He received multiple Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. More human beings have seen Neil Simon's plays than any other playwright in history! That's #1, numero uno, the top dude. Even though Shakespeare had a 500-year head start and has always been produced and popular, Simon is still tops. Live with it!
Looked down upon by highbrows but a master of his craft.
Great humor and a wry tolerance of human frailty.
Christopher Marlowe was an English playwright and poet of the Elizabethan era, active in the late 16th century. His major works include Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine, and Edward II. He is considered a precursor to Shakespeare and was known for his use of blank verse. He only wrote a few plays, but those inspired many of Shakespeare's works. Without him, we might not have the Shakespeare we know today.
A quiet achiever. Nothing flashy about these plays, but they are deeply felt.
He can see quite clearly through those thick-lensed specs.
Northern drollery laced with melancholy.
J. M. Barrie was a Scottish playwright and novelist best known for creating Peter Pan. He also wrote several other plays including The Admirable Crichton and What Every Woman Knows. Barrie was granted a baronetcy in 1913 for his contributions to literature.
Eugene O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate active in the early 20th century. His works include Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Iceman Cometh, and Mourning Becomes Electra. He was awarded four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. This is an indication of playing favorites and the sign of the times I am living in. O'Neill wrote good plays, great plays, and bad plays, but his life's work is his legacy.
A reminder that a play doesn't solve all of your problems is something that makes him my creative inspiration. He will always be number one on my list.
Perhaps the greatest American playwright. He wrote some of the most intense dramas of the 20th century.
How anyone could not have Eugene O'Neill in the top five is laughable.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His best-known play, Faust, is considered one of the greatest works of German literature. He contributed significantly to the Sturm und Drang movement and later to Weimar Classicism. One of the true-blue, old-style word bottlers.
Friedrich Schiller was a German dramatist, poet, and philosopher who lived from 1759 to 1805. His notable plays include The Robbers, Mary Stuart, and William Tell. Schiller often explored themes of freedom, justice, and moral conflict in his works. He combines Shakespeare's human insight and depth with total mastery of classical forms.
Harold Pinter was a British playwright and screenwriter known for his use of pause, ambiguity, and menace in dialogue. His major works include The Birthday Party, The Homecoming, and Betrayal. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005. The early plays are already classics, especially The Caretaker and The Homecoming. They are certainly among the greatest plays of the 20th century.
Giant of British playwrights. A unique talent.
In a class of his own. Comparisons are futile.