48.The Piano Lesson(1987)

By August Wilson

What do you do with your legacy?

47.Awake and Sing!

The playwright’s signature stage comedy spawned a hit film and TV series.

By Tony Kushner In his seven-hour epic, Kushner (husband of EW columnist Mark Harris) grapples with gay identity in the midst of the AIDS crisisÂ

Tony Kushner’s ‘Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes’.Credit: Joan Marcus/Everett Collection

42.Journey’s End(1928)

By R.C.

Sherriff

Sherriff dives into the trenches of World War I for a mesmerizingly claustrophobic study of men in combat.

The original London cast included a young Laurence Olivier.

By Conor McPherson Irishmen in a provincial pub swap ghost stories — until a female newcomer upstages them. Buy it: Amazon iTunes

Henry Di Rocco/SCR

Based on Jewish folklore, the play has become a Yiddish-theater staple.

“It’s not that way.

It’s over here!”

By Wendy Wasserstein Five Mount Holyoke grads gather for an impromptu reunion in Wasserstein’s breakout play, an incisive look at educated women that holds up

Roger Greenawalt/Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections

But the silences are just as explosive.

Then O’Neill’s confederacy of end-of-their-rope drunks struggle to cling to their delusions.

By Luigi Pirandello

Theater of the absurd has seldom been more cockeyed.

By August Wilson What do you do with your legacy? That question is at the heart of Wilson’s 1936-set family drama about an heirloom piano.

Joan Marcus

In this compelling drama, the options include embracing their African heritage and assimilating into white American culture.

But wouldn’t it be loverly if it were otherwise?

3.Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

By Clifford Odets A soulful Depression-era drama about a Jewish family in a cramped Bronx apartment. Buy it: Amazon

(1962)

By Edward Albee

The worst house party ever.

The older pair are named George and Marthamaking them the first couple of American dysfunction.

1.Death of a Salesman(1949)

Attention must be paid.

By Joe Orton This bone-dry farce packs in everything from adultery to cross-dressing to ‘‘the missing parts of Sir Winston Churchill.’’ Buy it: Amazon

Robbie Jack/Corbis

Willy struggles to compete in an economy that prizes youth and innovation over old-fashioned relationships.

In our Kardashian-saturated era, it’s a message that seems even more urgent today.

By Clare Boothe Luce An all-female cast paints the town red — jungle red — in Luce’s deliciously vicious (and sometimes catty) send-up of Manhattan

Joan Marcus

By Horton Foote Loosely based on the life of Foote’s father, this sharply observed nine-play saga traces one small-town Texas man from the turn of

Gregory Costanzo

By Neil Simon Simon spins comic gold from a simple premise: A fastidious newspaperman, Felix, moves in with his slovenly divorcé buddy, Oscar. The playwright’s

Everett Collection

By R.C. Sherriff Sherriff dives into the trenches of World War I for a mesmerizingly claustrophobic study of men in combat. The original London cast

George Karger/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Paul Newman | By William Inge Paul Newman made his Broadway debut in Inge’s classically structured play about caddish guys and the middle-American women of all ages who

AP Images

By Dario Fo Fo’s farce — based on a 1969 incident involving a Milan terror suspect — features a lethal bomb, a histrionic judge-impersonating criminal

Martha Swope

By Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur Chicago journalists Hecht and MacArthur wrote what they knew: a comedy classic about tabloid reporters naturally inclined to hip-pocket

Everett Collection

By Suzan-Lori Parks Parks' magnificent two-hander focuses on hypercompetitive African-American brothers (initially played by Jeffrey Wright and Don Cheadle) portentously named Lincoln and Booth. Buy

Michal Daniel

By Edward Bond Bond’s gritty, oft-censored look at impoverished young Londoners (which includes a notorious baby-stoning scene) influenced shock-and-awe purveyors such as Adam Rapp, Martin

Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images

By S. Ansky On the eve of her wedding, a young woman is possessed by a malevolent spirit. Based on Jewish folklore, the play has

Robbie Jack/Corbis

By David Henry Hwang Hwang’s wistful drama is based on the true story of a French diplomat’s romance with a Chinese opera diva — who’s

Joan Marcus

By Eugène Ionesco Pity the poor actors who must memorize Ionesco’s string of absurdist non sequiturs. ‘‘It’s not that way. It’s over here!’’ Buy it:

Pierre Verdy/Getty Images

By Alan Ayckbourn There’s never been a weekend in the country quite like the one six bed-hopping characters experience in this madcap comic trilogy. Buy

Joan Marcus

By Sophie Treadwell A high point of expressionism, inspired by the true story of a woman executed after murdering her boss-turned-husband. Buy it: Amazon

Michael Fein

By Martin McDonagh Tarantino-like dialogue and bloodletting feature prominently in a pitch-black comedy about an inept Irish Republican Army splinter group and the killing of

Hardy Wilson/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis

By Peter Weiss Weiss crafts a play-within-a-play directed by the notorious Marquis de Sade in Charenton Asylum. Buy it: Amazon

Robbie Jack/Corbis

By Michael Frayn Frayn elevates the door-slamming farce to high art in this three-act gem, which reveals the behind-the-scenes tensions in a hapless acting ensemble

Martha Swope

By Noël Coward Few midlife crises are as uproariously funny as fortysomething actor Garry Essendine’s in Coward’s typically witty comedy. Buy it: Amazon iTunes

Joan Marcus

By Caryl Churchill The Thatcher-era look at women’s achievements kicks off with an all-star dinner party including a ninth-century female pope, a British explorer, and

Martha Swope

By John Patrick Shanley Far more nuanced than the 2008 film, Shanley’s play centers on the fascinatingly ambiguous bond between a parish priest and an

Joan Marcus

By John Guare In a wicked comedy of manners, a young man charms his way into Manhattan society by claiming to be Sidney Poitier’s son.

Martha Swope

By Bertolt Brecht Brecht created a complex survival-bent heroine in an antiwar epic set during the 17th-century Thirty Years' War. Buy it: Amazon iTunes

Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images

By Lynn Nottage Like Mama Nadi, the savvy brothel owner at the center of this portrait of Congo’s civil war, Nottage doesn’t choose sides between

Joan Marcus

By Harold Pinter The dialogue pierces in Pinter’s account of a young couple’s visit to the hubby’s all-male family. But the silences are just as

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

By Athol Fugard Once banned in South Africa, Fugard’s play depicts a 17-year-old white boy’s complicated ties to two middle-aged black servants. Buy it: Amazon

Martha Swope

By Tom Stoppard The erudite Czech-born British wordsmith crafts an ingeniously clever play-within-a-play in which a Stoppard-like playwright reworks scenes from his actual life and

Martha Swope

By Lillian Hellman Who says women must always be demure little victims? In Hellman’s Southern-fried domestic drama, Regina Giddens proves to be far more ruthless

Everett Collection

By Arthur Miller In Miller’s contemporary Greek tragedy, a Brooklyn longshoreman is driven to jealous distraction when his 17-year-old niece (and ward) falls for a

Gordon Parks/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

By John Osborne The first of British theater’s Angry Young Men, Osborne produced a harshly realistic love triangle involving a working-class lad who marries an

Charles Hewitt/Getty Images

By Eugene O’Neill Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A sober man walks into a bar, Harry Hope’s sad-sack saloon in 1912 Greenwich

Joan Marcus

By Sam Shepard Such an actor’s showcase that in a 2000 NYC revival John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman alternated roles as a meek

Michael Brosilow

By Tracy Letts Pill-popping Oklahoma matriarch Violet Weston serves as hostess of a memorably snappish family reunion in Letts' barnstorming domestic drama. Buy it: Amazon

Joan Marcus

By David Mamet In Mamet’s kinetic, foulmouthed play about shady Chicago real estate salesmen, top agent Ricky Roma offers some sound advice: Always be closing.

Scott Landis/AP Images

By Tennessee Williams In this memory play, shrill, smothering Southern belle Amanda meddles in the stunted lives of her two misfit adult children. Buy it:

Everett Collection

By Luigi Pirandello Theater of the absurd has seldom been more cockeyed. Six strangers burst into a theater, interrupt a rehearsal, and demand that the

Rhodes College

By Thornton Wilder A Stage Manager leads a tour of all-American small town Grover’s Corners in Wilder’s no-frills play. It is typically staged with only

Ralph Morse/Pix Inc./Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

By Lorraine Hansberry An African-American family living on Chicago’s down-and-out South Side contend with how to improve their lot. In this compelling drama, the options

Gordon Parks/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

By George Bernard Shaw More people know the musical My Fair Lady than Shaw’s original play about phonetics professor Henry Higgins and his attempt to

Joan Marcus

By Samuel Beckett The Irish playwright’s bizarro existentialist classic features philosophizing, slapstick-loving tramps Gogo and Didi passing the time in a barren landscape where ‘‘time

Roger Viollet/Getty Images

By August Wilson Wilson’s 1950s-set drama is a memorable portrait of Negro League ballplayer-turned-trash collector Troy Maxson. He’s a bundle of contradictions, demanding that his

Joan Marcus

By Eugene O’Neill O’Neill recounts a fateful summer evening at the Tyrone family’s seaside home, where members of the clan battle their addictions (to alcohol

Everett Collection

By Edward Albee The worst house party ever. In Albee’s explosive play, which returned to Broadway last fall in a Tony-winning revival, an embittered, long-married

Everett Collection

By Tennessee Williams Blanche DuBois, a fading Southern beauty with delusions of grandeur, may depend on the kindness of strangers — but she falls under

Everett Collection

By Arthur Miller Attention must be paid. Over the past six decades, Miller’s drama about aging middle-class Everyman Willy Loman has become a classic evocation

Everett Collection