Women’s Equality Day is August 26th, and what better way to celebrate than reading plays by women about women? Below, find a list of 20 plays we highly recommend reading this month. 

Top Girls by Caryl Churchill

“Marlene has been promoted to managing director of a London employment agency and is celebrating. The symbolic luncheon is attended by women in legend or history who offer perspectives on maternity and ambition. In a time warp, these ladies are also her co-workers, clients, and relatives. Marlene, like her famous guests, has had to pay a price to ascend from proletarian roots to the executive suite: she has become, figuratively speaking, a male oppressor, and even coaches female clients on adopting odious male traits. Marlene has also abandoned her illegitimate and dull-witted daughter. Her emotional and sexual life has become as barren as Lady Macbeth’s.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley

“The scene is Hazlehurst, Mississippi, where the three Magrath sisters have gathered to await news of the family patriarch, their grandfather, who is living out his last hours in the local hospital. Lenny, the oldest sister, is unmarried at thirty and facing diminishing marital prospects; Meg, the middle sister, who quickly outgrew Hazlehurst, is back after a failed singing career on the West Coast; while Babe, the youngest, is out on bail after having shot her husband in the stomach. Their troubles, grave and yet, somehow, hilarious, are highlighted by their priggish cousin, Chick, and by the awkward young lawyer who tries to keep Babe out of jail while helpless not to fall in love with her. In the end the play is the story of how its young characters escape the past to seize the future—but the telling is so true and touching and consistently hilarious that it will linger in the mind long after the curtain has descended.” – Dramatists Play Service

Get the play here.

Detroit ‘67 by Dominique Morisseau

“In 1967 Detroit, Motown music is getting the party started, and Chelle and her brother Lank are making ends meet by turning their basement into an after-hours joint. But when a mysterious woman finds her way into their lives, the siblings clash over much more than the family business. As their pent-up feelings erupt, so does their city, and they find themselves caught in the middle of the ’67 riots.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

Machinal by Sophie Treadwell

“A major rediscovery of a forgotten woman playwright of the twenties, which was published alongside Stephen Daldry’s monumental National Theatre production starring Fiona Shaw. Machinal was the winner of four Olivier Awards. Sophie Treadwell’s play is an immensely powerful expressionist drama from the 1920s about the dependent status of women in an increasingly mechanised society, based on the true story of Ruth Snyder who was executed in 1928 for the murder of her husband.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

Trifles by Susan Glaspell

“Trifles is unusually powerful and effective, and gives fine roles for two good actresses. The wife of a strangled farmer is arrested on suspicion. While officers and neighbors are searching the old farmhouse for evidence, two women friends discover a slain canary and a broken cage. This evidence can prove the wife guilty, but by keeping her secret, they free her. An American classic by one of the original members of the Provincetown Playhouse, where this play was premiered.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

Eclipsed by Danai Gurira

“Their lives set on a nightmarish detour by civil war, the captive wives of a Liberian rebel officer form a hardscrabble sisterhood. With the arrival of a new girl who can read—and the return of an old one who can kill—their possibilities are quickly transformed. Drawing on reserves of wit and compassion, these defiant survivors ask: When the fog of battle lifts, could a different destiny emerge? ECLIPSED offers a chilling, humanizing and surprisingly funny portrait of transformation and renewal. With wit, compassion, and defiance, this gripping play unearths the wreckage of war and celebrates the women who navigate and survive the most hostile of circumstances.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange

“Capturing the brutal, tender and dramatic lives of contemporary Black women, For Colored Girls… offers a transformative, riveting evening of provocative dance, music and poetry.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

Sex by Mae West

“Set in a Montreal brothel, the play confronts the issue of women separated by class and attitudes of sexuality. West’s character learns the painful lesson that women are not bound in sisterhood simply because they have both shared the betrayal of men.” – Goodreads

Get the play (and others) here.

The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein

“Comprised of a series of interrelated scenes, the play traces the coming of age of Heidi Holland, a successful art historian, as she tries to find her bearings in a rapidly changing world. Gradually distancing herself from her friends, she watches them move from the idealism and political radicalism of their college years through militant feminism and, eventually, back to the materialism that they had sought to reject in the first place. Heidi’s own path to maturity involves an affair with the glib, arrogant Scoop Rosenbaum, a womanizing lawyer/publisher who eventually marries for money and position; a deeper but even more troubling relationship with a charming, witty young pediatrician, Peter Patrone, who turns out to be gay; and increasingly disturbing contacts with the other women, now much changed, who were a part of her childhood and college years.” – Dramatists Play Service

Get the play here.

The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman

“Picture a charming home in the South. Into this peaceful scene put the prosperous, despotic Hubbard family—Ben, possessive and scheming; Oscar, cruel and arrogant; Oscar’s son Leo, weak and unprincipled; Regina, wickedly clever—each trying to outwit the other. In contrast, meet lonely intimidated Birdie, whom Oscar wed for her father’s cotton fields; wistful Alexandra, Regina’s daughter; and Horace, ailing husband of Regina, between whom a breach has existed for years. The conflict in these lives has been caused by Ben’s ambition to erect a cotton mill. The brothers still lack $75,000 to complete the transaction. This, they hope, will come from Horace, who has been in a hospital with a heart ailment. Horace is beset by his relatives the first hour of his homecoming, but refuses to commit himself. Desperate, Leo and Oscar plan for Leo to take $80,000 worth of bonds from Horace’s safe-deposit box.” – Dramatists Play Service

Get the play here.

Girl. by Megan Mostyn-Brown

“A play about what it means to be a “girl” in this day and age. The girls in this play show great strength, revealing their vulnerabilities in language that is honest and extremely compelling. Split into three sections, the characters speak entirely in monologues (with some overlap), providing great material for auditions and monologue work.” – Amazon

Get the play here.

Venus by Suzan-Lori Parks

“In 1810, The Venus Hottentot (as she is dubbed)—a young black woman with an enormous posterior—is lured away from her menial job in South Africa to tour the world and make lots of money. Once in England, however, she is sold to a freak show and becomes a star. She shows off her attribute, bringing in crowds and raking in money for the sideshow owners. Quickly becoming adept at displaying herself and understanding what the people want from her as a freak, she even tries to break out on her own, but can’t quite master that in those social times. Eventually, she is procured by a white doctor who is more than fascinated with her. He falls in love with her and keeps her as his mistress until he is in danger of losing his medical reputation and social standing. Venus, who journeyed to Europe with high hopes, at the end of her short life, was dissected by the man she loved.” – Dramatists Play Service

Get the play here.

Fefu and Her Friends by María Irene Fornés

“This is one of the best-loved Off-Off-Broadway plays of recent decades. In the innovative original production, which Fornes herself directed, the audience follows the lives of eight women in five different ‘environments.’” – Amazon

Get the play here.

In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) by Sarah Ruhl

“Set in the 1880s at the dawn of the age of electricity and based on the bizarre historical fact that doctors used vibrators to treat ‘hysterical’ women (and some men), the play centers on a doctor and his wife and how his new therapy affects their entire household.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee

Features female stagehands and two characters of nonbinary gender identity. “When Ed and his three adult sons come together to celebrate Christmas, they enjoy cheerful trash-talking, pranks, and takeout Chinese. Then they confront a problem that even being a happy family can’t solve: When identity matters, and privilege is problematic, what is the value of being a straight white man?”- Dramatists Play Service

Get the play here.

Body Awareness by Annie Baker

“It’s Body Awareness Week on a Vermont college campus and Phyllis, the organizer, and her partner, Joyce, are hosting one of the guest artists in their home: Frank, a photographer famous for his female nude portraits. Both his presence in the home and his chosen subject instigate tension from the start. Phyllis is furious at his depictions, but Joyce is actually rather intrigued by the whole thing, even going so far as to contemplate posing for him. As Joyce and Phyllis bicker, Joyce’s adult son, who may or may not have Asperger syndrome, struggles to express himself physically – with heartbreaking results.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

Milk Like Sugar by Kirsten Greenidge

“It is Annie Desmond’s sixteenth birthday and her friends have decided to help her celebrate in style, complete with a brand new tattoo. Before her special night is over, however, Annie and her friends enter into a life altering pact. When Annie tries to make good on her promise to her friends, she is forced to take a good look at the world that surrounds her. She befriends Malik, who promises a bright future, and Keera, whose evangelical leanings inspire Annie in a way her young parents have not been able to do. In the end Annie’s choices propel her onto an irreversible path in this story that combines wit, poetry, and hope.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

Mary Jane by Amy Herzog

“As Mary Jane navigates both the mundane and the unfathomable realities of caring for Alex, her chronically ill young son, she finds herself building a community of women from many walks of life. Mary Jane is Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog’s remarkably powerful and compassionate portrait of a contemporary American woman striving for grace.” – Samuel French

Get the play here.

Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine by Lynn Nottage

“A social satire about an ambitious and haughty African-American woman, Undine Barnes Calles, whose husband suddenly disappears after embezzling all of her money. Pregnant and on the brink of social and financial ruin, Undine retreats to her childhood home in Brooklyn’s Walt Whitman projects, only to discover that she must cope with a crude new reality. Undine faces the challenge of transforming her setbacks into small victories in a battle to reaffirm her right to be.” – Dramatists Play Service

Get the play here.

Desdemona, a play about a handkerchief by Paula Vogel

“Having slept with Othello’s entire encampment, Desdemona revels in her bawdy tales of conquest. Her foils and rapt listeners are the other integral and reimagined women of this Shakespeare tragedy: Emilia, Desdemona’s servant and the wife of Iago, and Bianca, now a majestic whore of Cyprus. The reluctantly loyal Emilia pesters Desdemona about a military promotion for her husband. Her motive, however, is that he leave her a wealthy widow, preferably sooner than later. Bianca, now a street-wise yet painfully naive prostitute, visits Desdemona, thinking she is a very good friend and fellow hooker (at least one night a week). Bianca thinks the worst when she discovers that Desdemona knows intimate details of the life of her lover, Cassio. Though Desdemona has never been intimate with Cassio, her life is soon in danger when her husband, Othello, also suspects her of infidelity.” – Dramatists Play Service

Get the play here.

Interested in reading more plays? Check out our other features below!

• 25 Plays All High School Seniors Should Read (Before They Graduate)
• 10 Contemporary Native American Playwrights You Should Know
• 10 Contemporary Playwrights of Color You Should Know
• 10 Asian American Playwrights You Should Know
• 10 Latinx, Hispanic, and Chicano/a Playwrights You Should Know
• 10 Eighteenth-Century Female Playwrights You Should Know
• 10 Nineteenth-Century Female Playwrights You Should Know
• 10 Classic Russian Playwrights You Should Know
• 12 Elizabethan and Jacobean Playwrights You Should Know
• 7 Greek and Roman Playwrights You Should Know
• 13 Classic American Playwrights You Should Know
• Early 20th Century Broadway Composers and Lyricists You Should Know