In honor of Worldwide Ladies’s Day and Ladies’s Historical past Month, listed here are the ladies playwrights who’ve gained the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an annual award given for “a distinguished play by an American author…coping with American life” that started in 1917, and can be awarded subsequent on Might 8, 2024.

It is likely to be value noting that within the first half of the 20 th century, a lady was awarded the prize a mean of as soon as each ten years, adopted by a spot of 23 years. The interval has narrowed significantly within the final decade.

The work of greater than two dozen different feminine playwrights have been designated Pulitzer finalists because the finalist class was created in 1983 (See checklist at backside)

Every play title beneath is accompanied by the 12 months through which the award was given, and linked to an Amazon web page (the place you possibly can be taught extra about it, and buy the script — if it’s been revealed but); in addition to to any productions I reviewed, and to the Pulitzer Board’s official quotation (which they’ve solely written since 2009.)

Zona Gale, Miss Lulu Bett, 1921. First a novel, and afterward a silent film, the play tells the story of an single girl who fights her household for dignity, and tries to search out love. (the hyperlink is to the total textual content, which is now within the public area)

Susan Glaspell, Alison’s Home, 1931, a play primarily based on the lifetime of Emily Dickinson, who was receiving intensive consideration because the hundredth anniversary of her beginning approached. On the final day of the nineteenth century, her household recollects the late famend poet, Alison Stanhope,.(the hyperlink is to a set of Glaspell performs)

Zoe Akins, The previous maid,, 1935, an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel a few girl’s struggle to reclaim the love of her daughter, who she reluctantly gave to her cousin to lift.

Mary Coyle Chase, Harvey, 1945, a comedy a few man who befriends an invisible rabbit. (My overview of a biography: Pulling Harvey Out of Her Hat: The Wonderful Story of Mary Coyle Chase.)

Frances Goodrich, The Diary of Anne Frank., 1956 (co-written with Albert Hackett), a dramatization of the favored diary by a sufferer of the Holocaust.

Ketti Frings, Look Homeward, Angel, 1958. Based mostly on Thomas Wolfe’s 1929 coming-of-age, largely autobiographical novel of the identical identify, it takes place in a boarding home in Altamont, North Caroline.

Beth Henley, Crimes of the Coronary heart., 1981. The lives of three quirky sisters who’ve gathered again dwelling of their hometown in Mississippi and attempt to perceive their mom’s suicide years earlier. Henley wrote the screenplay for the starry 1986 film adaptation. 

Marsha Norman, ‘evening, Mom, 1983. Going down in a single night, the play begins with Jessie calmly telling her mom Thelma that by morning she can be useless, as she plans to commit suicide. As with Henley and “Crimes of the Coronary heart,” Norman additionally wrote a screenplay of her play for a starry 1986 film adaptation (Sissy Spacek was in each films.).

Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles., 1989. (My overview of the 2015 Broadway manufacturing of The Heidi Chronicles)

Paula Vogel, How I Realized to Drive, 1998 (My overview of the 2022 Broadway manufacturing of How I Realized to Drive.)

Margaret Edson, Wit, 1999, a famend English professor dying of most cancers examines what makes life value residing

Suzan-Lori Parks, TOPDOG UNDERDOG, 2002 (My overview of the 2022 Broadway revival of Topdog/Underdog.)

Lynn Nottage, Ruined, 2009
“A searing drama set in chaotic Congo that compels audiences to face the horror of wartime rape and brutality whereas nonetheless discovering affirmation of life and hope amid hopelessness.” That is the primary of Nottage’s two Pulitzer Prizes, the one girl to be so honored.

Quiara Alegría Hudes, Water by the Spoonful, 2012 (My overview of the 2013 Off-Broadway manufacturing of Water By The Spoonful)
“An imaginative play concerning the seek for that means by a returning Iraq battle veteran working in a sandwich store in his hometown of Philadelphia.”

Annie Baker, The Flick, 2014. (My overview of the 2013 Off Broadway manufacturing of The Flick.)
“A considerate drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three workers of a Massachusetts art-house movie show, rendering lives not often seen on the stage.”

Lynn Nottage, Sweat  2017 (the second of her two Pulitzers) (My overview of Sweat.)
For a nuanced but highly effective drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck nonetheless dealing with employees looking for the American dream.

Martyna Majok , Value of Dwelling  2018. (My overview of the 2022 Broadway manufacturing of Value of Dwelling.)
“An trustworthy, authentic work that invitations audiences to look at numerous perceptions of privilege and human connection by two pairs of mismatched people: a former trucker and his just lately paralyzed ex-wife, and an smug younger man with cerebral palsy and his new caregiver.”

Jackie Sibblies Drury, Fairview 2019 (My overview of Fairview.)
“A tough-hitting drama that examines race in a extremely conceptual, layered construction, finally bringing audiences into the actors’ neighborhood to face deep-seated prejudices.”

Katori Corridor, The Scorching Wing King, 2021
“A humorous, deeply felt consideration of Black masculinity and the way it’s perceived, filtered by the experiences of a loving homosexual couple and their prolonged household as they put together for a culinary competitors.”

Sanaz Toossi, English, 2023 (My overview)
A quietly highly effective play about 4 Iranian adults getting ready for an English language examination in a storefront college close to Tehran, the place household separations and journey restrictions drive them to be taught a brand new language which will alter their identities and likewise signify a brand new life.

Feminine finalists since 1983:
Portray Church buildings, by Tina Howe,
And What of the Evening?, by Maria Irene Fornes
Fires within the Mirror, by Anna Deavere Smith
Keely and Du, by Jane Martin (a pseudonym)
Pleasure’s Crossing, by Tina Howe
Freedomland, by Amy Freed
Operating Man, by Cornelius Eady and Diedre Murray
n the Blood, by Suzan-Lori Parks
Yellowman, by Dael Orlandersmith
The Glory of Dwelling, by Rebecca Gilman
Omnium Gatherum, by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros
The Clear Home, by Sarah Ruhl.
Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue, by Quiara Alegria Hudes
Bulrusher, by Eisa Davis
In The Heights, by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes
Becky Shaw, by Gina Gionfriddo
In the Subsequent Room or the vibrator play, by Sarah Ruhl
Detroit, by Lisa D’Amour
Rapture, Blister, Burn, by Gina Gionfriddo
4000 Miles, by Amy Herzog
The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence, by Madeleine George
Enjoyable Residence, by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori
Father Comes Residence from the Wars (Components 1, 2, 3), by Suzan-Lori Parks
The Wolves, by Sarah DeLappe
What the Structure Means to Me, by Heidi Schreck
Dance Nation, by Clare Barron
Stew, by Zora Howard
Promoting Kabul, by Sylvia Khoury
Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, by Kristina Wong
On Sugarland, by Aleshea Harris