The Top 20* Most-Produced Playwrights of the 2019-20 Season
American Theatre Magazine
BY DIEP TRAN
For the second season, Lauren Gunderson is the most-produced playwright in America, with 11 plays being produced around the country.
By this point you’d think Lauren Gunderson would run out of quotes to give us about being the most-produced playwright in American (again). After all, this is the second season she has been at the top of the most-produce playwrights list (and last season she was #2). But Gunderson continues to be delightfully surprised and enthusiastic. (For a list of this season’s Top 10 Most-Produced Plays, go here.)
“I write plays that give women voice and put their struggles, passions, power and wit center stage,” she tells us from her home in San Francisco. “The deep thrill of this honor is that it means that women’s stories (which are vital human stories for all audiences, not just for women) are more of a priority on stages across this country. Our stories are valuable, necessary, desired, and here to stay.”
With a whopping 33 professional productions, this is Gunderson’s most prolific season yet (it probably helps that she co-wrote two Christmas plays with Margot Melcon, proving that there’s no success like a holiday perennial). And though the American theatre still has yet to program as many female playwrights as male playwrights, it is comforting to know that a playwright like Gunderson, and the 11 other female playwrights on our most-produced playwrights list, can have successful careers. Below is our annual list of the most-produced playwrights of the new season across the U.S.
The Top 20* Most-Produced Playwrights of the 2019-20 Season
Lauren Gunderson 33
(including 12 co-writing credits)Lauren Yee 18
Lucas Hnath 17
Tennessee Williams 17
August Wilson 15
Karen Zacarías 15
(including 3 co-writing credits)Ken Ludwig 15
(including 1 co-writing credit)Joshua Harmon 13
(including 1 co-writing credit)Neil Simon 13
Simon Stephens 13
Margot Melcon 12
(including 12 co-writing credits with Lauren Gunderson)Lynn Nottage 12
(including 1 co-writing credit)Duncan Macmillan 11
(including 10 co-writing credits)Kate Hamill 11
Quiara Alegría Hudes 11
(including 7 co-writing credits)Paula Vogel 10
Sarah Ruhl 10
Lucy Kirkwood 9
Steve Martin 9
Steven Dietz 9
*Actually 22 because of ties
Methodology
Each year we collect season programming information from Theatre Communications Group’s member theatres; from those listings, which totaled 2,229 entries at 385 theatres playing Sept 1, 2019, to Aug. 31, 2020, we set aside all Shakespeare productions. We also removed any productions with fewer than two weeks of performances.
The Genius of Gunderson
How do you get to No. 1? By being prolific. Gunderson has 11 plays represented on the list: Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, its sequel The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley, Ada and the Engine, Exit, Pursued by a Bear, Silent Sky, I and You, Ada and The Engine, The Revolutionists, The Taming, The Book of Will, The Heath, and Natural Shocks. They cover a range of time periods, from Shakespearean England in The Book of Will to a modern teenager’s bedroom in I and You. But the connective tissue in all of them seems to be the powerful voices of women, especially historical women who have been overlooked, and rethinking what we think we know, whether that’s Jane Austen or gun violence.
Footnotes
Shakespeare has 79 productions this season (including adaptations), making him, as ever, the actual most-produced playwright in the United States. But since he’s dead, we’re figuring he won’t mind us not including him.
It’s a good year for Laurens: Lauren Yee makes her debut not only on our Top 20 but on our Top 10 list with not one but two titles: The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band.
We don’t include composers on this list, but if we did, Alan Menken would be up there. He is the most-produced composer this season with 19 productions, most of them from musicals he wrote with Disney. Theatre snobs and princess skeptics may scoff, but the Mouse’s dominion over entertainment may reach into theatre.