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Recommendations based on Proofby David Auburn
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Wit
by Margaret Edson
A professor's journey of self-discovery as she faces her own mortality.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the Oppenheimer Award,Margaret Edson’s ... (Goodreads)
Doubt, a Parable
by John Patrick Shanley
A priest's moral dilemma as he faces accusations of inappropriate behavior.
The play is set in the fictional St. Nicholas Church School, in the Bronx , during the fall of 1964. It opens with a sermon by Father Flynn, a beloved and progressive parish priest, addressing the ... (Wikipedia)
'night, Mother
by Marsha Norman
A mother and daughter grapple with the consequences of a mother's impending suicide.
',night, Mother, is a taut and fluid drama that addresses different emotions and special relations. By one of America's most talented playwrights, this play won the Dramatists Guild's prestigious ... (Goodreads)
Glengarry Glen Ross
by David Mamet
Cutthroat competition in a real estate sales office, where survival of the fittest is the only way out.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard
A humorous exploration of fate and free will, seen through the eyes of two minor characters in Shakespeare's "Hamlet".
Hamlet told from the worm's-eye view of two minor characters, bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, reality and illusion mix, and where fate leads heroes to a ... (Goodreads)
The Pillowman
by Martin McDonagh
A darkly comic tale of a writer accused of murder, testing the limits of storytelling.
Ariel and Tupolski interrogate Katurian in a police room, adopting a good cop/bad cop routine with Ariel happily playing the bad cop. At first Katurian does not know why he is being questioned, and ... (Wikipedia)
A Streetcar Named Desire
by Tennessee Williams
A woman's struggle to come to terms with her past and present in a post-war New Orleans.
After the loss of her family home to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from the small town of Laurel, Mississippi , to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger married sister, Stella , ... (Wikipedia)
Perestroika
by Tony Kushner
A powerful look at the impact of political upheaval on the lives of ordinary people.
Set in New York City, the play takes place between October 1985 and February 1986. , The play begins with the funeral of Sarah Ironson, an elderly Jewish woman, whose rabbi eulogizes not only her, ... (Wikipedia)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams
A family struggling to confront hidden resentments and repressions that lurk beneath the surface.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the story of a Southern family in crisis, especially the husband Brick and wife Margaret (usually called Maggie or "Maggie the Cat"), and their interaction with Brick's ... (Wikipedia)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
by Edward Albee
A darkly comedic exploration of a troubled couple's tumultuous marriage.
George and Martha engage in dangerous emotional games. George is an associate professor of history and Martha is the daughter of the president of the college where George teaches. After they return ... (Wikipedia)
Fences
by August Wilson
A family struggles to reconcile their differences and understand their place in a segregated society.
The focus of Wilson's attention in Fences is Troy, a 53-year-old working class head of household who struggles with providing for his family. The play takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ; ... (Wikipedia)
August: Osage County
by Tracy Letts
A darkly comic and dramatic family reunion, exposing dysfunction and tensions.
The action takes place over the course of several weeks in August inside the three-story home of Beverly and Violet Weston outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma . Prologue The play opens with Beverly Weston, a ... (Wikipedia)
The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone
by Sophocles
Ancient tragedy of a family's fall from grace due to a fateful prophecy.
English versions of Sophocles’ three great tragedies based on the myth of Oedipus, translated for a modern audience by two gifted poets. Index. ... (Barnes & Noble)
Inherit the Wind
by Jerome Lawrence
A courtroom drama about a teacher accused of violating a law against teaching evolution.
A meaningful play based on the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, in which a Tennessee teacher was tried for teaching evolution. The accused was a slight, frightened man who'd deliberately broken the law. ... (Goodreads)
Angels in America
by Tony Kushner
Epic story of America in the midst of the AIDS crisis, exploring themes of identity, loss, and hope.
Set in New York City, the play takes place between October 1985 and February 1986. , The play begins with the funeral of Sarah Ironson, an elderly Jewish woman, whose rabbi eulogizes not only her, ... (Wikipedia)
The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides
by Aeschylus
Tragedy of a cursed family and their struggle to find the truth and justice.
Alternate cover edition can be found, here,, here,, here,, here, In the Oresteia—the only trilogy in Greek drama which survives from antiquity—Aeschylus took as his subject the bloody chain of murder ... (Goodreads)
All My Sons
by Arthur Miller
A family drama about a man who sold faulty airplane parts during WWII, causing the death of 21 pilots. Emotions: Guilt, Betrayal, Grief, Anger. Topics: Family, Morality, Responsibility, War, Capitalism. Personality: Conscientious, Moralistic, Patriotic, Family-oriented. Desires: Justice, Redemption, Forgiveness, Honesty. Avoids: Dishonesty, Betrayal, Immorality.
Joe Keller and Herbert Deever, partners in a machine shop during the war, turned out defective airplane parts, causing the deaths of many men. Deever was sent to prison while Keller escaped ... (Goodreads)
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
by Max Brooks
A collection of interviews recounting tales of the zombie apocalypse.
It has been nearly twenty years since the start of the apocalyptic worldwide pandemic known as the Zombie War, and about ten years since the war has ended in humanity's victory. The framing device ... (Wikipedia)
A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen
A woman's struggle to break from societal expectations and find her own identity.
A Doll's House (1879), is a masterpiece of theatrical craft which, for the first time portrayed the tragic hypocrisy of Victorian middle class marriage on the stage. The play ushered in a new social ... (Goodreads)
The Complete Stories and Poems
by Edgar Allan Poe
A collection of dark and mysterious stories and poems, exploring the depths of the human condition.
This single volume brings together all of Poe's stories and poems, and illuminates the diverse and multifaceted genius of one of the greatest and most influential figures in American literary ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Elephant Man
by Bernard Pomerance
The story of John Merrick, a severely deformed man in Victorian England, and his journey to find acceptance and dignity.
The Elephant Man opens with Frederick Treves , an up-and-coming surgeon, meeting his new employer Francis Carr-Gomm, the administrator of the London Hospital. Ross, the manager of a freak show , ... (Wikipedia)
Hedda Gabler
by Henrik Ibsen
A woman's struggle against societal expectations and a search for freedom.
Hedda, the daughter of an aristocratic and enigmatic general, has just returned to her villa in Kristiania (now Oslo) from her honeymoon. Her husband is George Tesman, a young, aspiring, and reliable ... (Wikipedia)
Where the Red Fern Grows
by Wilson Rawls
A young boy embarks on an adventure with his beloved hunting dogs, learning valuable life lessons.
An old man named Billy Colman rescues a redbone hound under attack by neighborhood dogs. He takes it home with him so that its wounds can heal. In light of this event, he has a flashback to when he ... (Wikipedia)
Long Day's Journey into Night
by Eugene O'Neill
Tragic story of a family's struggles with addiction, emotions and guilt.
Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night is regarded as his finest work. First published by Yale University Press in 1956, it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957 and has since ... (Goodreads)
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
by Michael Rosen
A retelling of the classic tragedy of two young lovers from feuding families, set in modern times.
The bard's quintessential love story — retold in an elegantly illustrated volume that will appeal both to aficionados of Shakespeare's play and to readers discovering it for the first time. The story ... (Goodreads)
Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman
An exploration of the relationship between the individual and the divine, viewed through the lens of nature and its rhythms.
A collection of quintessentially American poems, the seminal work of one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century. ... (Goodreads)
The Glass Menagerie
by Tennessee Williams
A young woman's struggle to find her place in society, while being held back by her family.
The play is introduced to the audience by Tom, the narrator and protagonist, as a memory play based on his recollection of his mother Amanda and his sister Laura. Because the play is based on memory, ... (Wikipedia)
Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A collection of four works exploring the human psyche, morality, and existentialism through the lens of Russian society.
The story opens with the narrator wandering the streets of St. Petersburg . He is contemplating the ridiculousness of his own life, and his recent realization that nothing matters to him any more. It ... (Wikipedia)
The Birthday Party
by Harold Pinter
A seemingly ordinary birthday party turns into a nightmare of paranoia and fear.
While Meg prepares to serve her husband Petey breakfast, Stanley, described as a man "in his late thirties" (23), who is dishevelled and unshaven, enters from upstairs. Alternating between maternal ... (Wikipedia)
100 Selected Poems
by E.E. Cummings
An exploration of life, love, and the beauty of nature through the lens of poetry.
E.E. Cummings is without question one of the major poets of this century, and this volume, first published in 1959, is indispensable for every lover of modern lyrical verse. It contains one hundred ... (Barnes & Noble)
