All Call? The Best Contemporary Plays on the Scene

Who doesn’t love a trip to the theatre? The lights, the music, the acting, the velvety curtains. Plays are up there with live concerts for those who can appreciate a good, elaborate production, the final result of hundreds of hours of dedication and collaboration among cast, crew, and director alike.

Believe it or not, the theatre as an institution is actually thousands of years old. The Greeks were the first to establish the concept of “plays,” as with so many other things, and are most responsible for developing the art form that we recognize today. Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and other playwrights (whose works are now partially or totally lost to time) combined themes of tragedy and comedy, orchestral scores, dance, and forceful rhetoric to create vibrant traditions of performance art. But theatre was never exclusively a Greek product, for artists from Rome to Egypt to India to America have infused their stories with their own cultural and societal idiosyncrasies ever since. Perhaps the most famous playwright of all time, William Shakespeare, was an Englishman who penned his greatest hits over two thousand years after Sophocles first performed Oedipus Rex.

But what about today? What famous modern plays have brought us memorable characters to occupy space alongside Hamlet and Macbeth? If nothing else, which works of theatre are now on the scene and offer, at least, fresh and exciting stories to pique our interest?

In this article, let’s forget Shakespeare for a moment and discuss newer names. These contemporary plays for college students come to us from talented playwrights whose relative youth precludes them, for now, from “timeless” status, but whose performance art is as worthwhile during runtime as it is upon later reflection. For college students interested in a fun night at the theatre, here’s what you should see next.

A Quick Word on Published Plays

Before we start, we just want to emphasize, for those unaware, how dramatic plays actually make it to the stage.

Like books, plays have to get published! To show their work on Broadway, at festivals, or even local theatres, playwrights submit their writing to publishing companies or contests for which publication is the grand prize. Once it’s accepted somewhere, the play comes to life through production – itself an arduous process involving all the moving pieces mentioned at the start.

As you read, therefore, just keep in mind that modern plays are not standard-bearing copycats but their own unique, respectable forces of creativity.

What Is a Contemporary Play? Look No Further Than Jerusalem

Let’s start off with Jez Butterworth’s 2009 smash hit, which is widely considered among the best 21st century plays, if not one of the best theatre plays of all time: Jerusalem.

Set in Wiltshire, England, Jerusalem centers around the life of Johnny “Rooster” Byron, a nonconformist who, from his mobile home, assumes various roles as a fixture of his community. The local government hates him, the outcasts gravitate towards him, and his son wishes he had a better father in his life. While many of Rooster’s stories are fictitious, his many monologues demonstrate, against a modern backdrop, how myths are formed when detached from their usually ancient contexts.

Jerusalem is funny, tragic, and provocative all at once, full of conflict with bureaucracy and trappings of life in the twenty-first century. That’s why it’s starting off this list; few plays better represent its contemporary setting so well, much less its depth.

Point: The staging turns the kitchen into a pressure cooker.
Evidence: In the dinner scene, all five actors stand shoulder to shoulder at the sink.
Explanation: The cramped blocking shows how no one has room to speak freely.
Link: This tight staging supports the thesis that the production highlights control over comfort.
  

A Play Without (Hardly Any) Dialogue? Small Mouth Sounds

Contemporary drama is often experimental, manipulating the theatre’s traditional elements in order to push the boundaries of its artistic possibilities. Thus we come to Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds, at the center of which is a twist: the entire play is almost silent.

How does she pull it off? The play is about six urbanites, all from wildly different circumstances, who embark on a silent-meditation retreat led by an invisible and incompetent “guru.” With almost no dialogue, the cast demonstrates its acting chops with facial movements, body language, and varying levels of concentration. In doing so, they deliver one of the most innovative contemporary comedy plays of the past decade, but one with a sardonic take on the efficacy of self-help and, regarding the guru, its often maladroit beneficiaries.

If you’re a college student who’s ever been skeptical about someone else’s mental health advice, Small Mouth Sounds is the play for you.

A Play (Ostensibly) About a Band: Stereophonic

Stereophonic is still under a year old, being released in October 2023. However, it’s already made theatre history as among the most Tony-nominated plays of all time. Thirteen nominations and five wins later, we had to include it here.

David Adjmi’s three-hour behemoth is set in 1976 and follows the artistic process of a rock band creating a new album. While working in the studio, the band’s members provide the audience with fascinating character studies and complex interpersonal relationships that transcend their stereotypical “musician” surface traits. While music figures heavily in the plot – and Will Baker, of Arcade Fire fame, provides the score – Stereophonic continues to draw audiences with, to put it simple, just really good character writing.

If you’re a musician (or a fan of Fleetwood Mac, to which Adjmi’s band has been compared), or if you enjoy sinking your teeth into compelling characters, then make Stereophonic your next watch.

A Play Going Backwards in Time: Merrily We Roll Along

Historically, this play has not been considered one of the best contemporary plays, even though it was composed by one of the best contemporary playwrights of all time: the late, great Stephen Sondheim. However, its most recent Off-Broadway revival, starring Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe, is an absolutely joyful experience, and it’s the version we’re recommending here.

Merrily We Roll Along main quirk is that it moves chronologically backwards, starting by establishing the success of its lead character, Frank Shepard, before retelling his path to fame over the previous twenty years of his life. The play takes audiences through different iconic eras of New York City’s history, replete with references to the Kennedy family, Cold War, and the evolution of show business Throughout its duration, the performance challenges viewers to reflect upon the price of success, the drama of life’s vicissitudes, and how best to remain authentic while navigating them.

A Play That’s Not What It Seems: Fairview

Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview is a comedy that carries serious racial messages. The play starts out by following a middle-class black family putting together a birthday dinner for their grandmother. However, as it progresses, the audience bears witness to the discomforting effects of the “white gaze,” as the cast’s central black characters are surveilled, and then slowly replaced, by white people playing their same roles. It’s a bizarre concept, but the point is to provoke self-reflection, especially among white audience members, about what viewers take for granted in the media they consume. Scenes are repeated, the music is glitchy at times, and the open insensitivity of some characters is designed to instill uneasiness. Fairview is at once odd, daring, off-putting; for that reason, it may not be for everyone. That said, Drury is avant-garde even as far as modern playwrights go, and experiencing her work is rewarding despite its bold eccentricity.

A Play That…Well, You Already Know: Hamilton

Alright, alright. We thought about excluding this play just because it’s been so, so popular since its release in 2015. At the same time, it is one of the most famous theatre plays in the world, even nine years later; Lin-Manuel Miranda’s magnum opus has inspired political ads, books, hurricane relief, and (most honorable of all) a polka parody by the great Weird Al Yankovic.

Miranda’s biopic about Alexander Hamilton follows the Founding Father’s role in the American Revolution and its immediate aftermath. The play is many things: rap-fueled, historical, seamless, and racially diverse. Reflecting the makeup of its own contemporary audiences, the play intentionally casts its all-white “source material” as people of color. It’s a creative touch, though it’s also not all that Hamilton has to offer. Few plays achieve its level of cultural splash, and, by the end of each show, those who enjoy history and hip hop won’t be left wanting of either.

Emphatically NOT A Play About Henry VIII: Six

Following Hamilton’s lead, we have another iconic musical centered around not one but six (get it?) historical figures. Three Catherines, two Annes, and one Jane: the wives (though not in that order) of the infamous English king, Henry VIII.

However, this play isn’t about Henry. Instead, we get a modern, contemporary overview of his wives’ lives, retold in the form of a pop concert. Each of the wives is inspired by real-life pop stars from Jennifer Lopez to Beyoncé to Avril Lavigne, though we won’t spoil which ones correspond to which. We will, however, stress, as do playwrights Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, that Six is a chance for audiences to learn about six extraordinary women whose legacies have been defined, to their detriment, by their relationships with one ruthless man. College students will therefore appreciate not just its creative approach, teaching history through pop music, but also its feminist ambitions.

A Play by Women, About Women, for Everyone: Suffs

Rounding out our trio of historical plays, we have Shaina Taub’s smash hit musical – produced also by Hillary Clinton and Malala Yousafzai herself – about the women’s suffrage movement in the early twentieth century. Suffs introduces audiences, perhaps for the first time, to leading suffragists like Alice Paul, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Mary Terrell, who are featured alongside – and in opposition to – the more familiar Woodrow Wilson. While women’s suffrage is the play’s core conflict, the movement also interweaves with African-American civil rights, World War I, and other political issues of the era.

We recommend Suffs to student feminists, historians, and music lovers alike. Watch it if you want to settle in for 2.5 hours of inspiring storytelling, made complete with the message that full equality can yet be achieved. If you just want to learn about a historical period too often skimmed over in class, that’s perfectly fine, too.

A Play About Family: The Hills of California

Perhaps this is your lucky day to find out that Jez Butterworth, of Jerusalem fame, has a new play this year, and, like Jerusalem was, it’s one of the best dramatic plays out there.

The Hills of California is set in the resort town of Blackpool, England in 1976, though it also alternates with the 1950s. The pitch isn’t exactly joyful: it’s an exceedingly hot summer, and the Webb sisters gather at the decrepit Sea View Guest House to rekindle memories while their mother is dying upstairs. However, the somber scene allows Butterworth’s cast to explore profound themes surrounding family, including forlorn memories, bittersweet nostalgia, and siblings separated by space and time. There’s a reason why reviews compare the play to a richly written novel. And that’s why we recommend it to college students, who so often have to read such things for class and, oftentimes, have siblings as well.

A Play About Greek Mythology: Hadestown

To close out this list, we have Rachel Chavkin’s intricate retelling of tales from Greek mythology. Remember how we said that theatre was invented in Ancient Greece? It’s a testament to the Greeks’ influence that, in 2024, playgoers can still enjoy not just the same art form but the same stories they did – in this case, those of Orpheus, Eurydice, Persephone, and King Hades of the Underworld himself.

College students who read Percy Jackson growing up will likely recognize the slew of gods and heroes mentioned (and sung about) throughout Hadestown. What they may not expect is the play’s ability to weave its timeless love stories with modern issues, like climate change and economic inequality. With its seamless blend of the old and new, the musical advances the idea that struggle is worthwhile even if it doesn’t lead to success. For stressed-out college students, that motivational message is easy to forget about, and yet it’s never unwelcome.

The Play’s the Thing!

That’s our list of what are, in our opinion, the best contemporary plays out right now. With memorable music, electrifying effects, and powerful themes, there’s a reason why theatre has been so beloved for millennia and why it continues to be so impactful today. Like a great movie with higher stakes (plays are live, after all), theatre has a profound ability to leave us feeling and reflecting upon its stories well after its two- or three-hour hold on our attention spans. In an era of lightning-fast trends and technological distractions, sometimes that kind of deeper thinking is all we need.