If you like reading plays, what are some of your favourites?

[WaterBird]

They can either be classics or more modern. I've just started getting into them and have been enjoying them, but haven't read too many yet.
Thanks.

[PierreBezukov]

Anything by Brian Friel. Translations, Faith Healer, Philadelphia here I come, Dancing at Lughnasa - all work well as texts.

Sean O'Casey - Juno and the Paycock, The Plough and the Stars.

[Sauvignonblanket]

Tom Stoppard from me as well - The Real Thing as well as Arcadia

[hackmum]

Oscar Wilde is fun to read. Alan Bennett is good too, especially if you've seen the play. Another one I've returned to a few times is Terry Johnson's Dead Funny - saw it on the stage first but have immensely enjoyed reading and rereading the script.

[tobee]

I like the contrasts you get with reading plays: in Shakespeare for eg you hardly have any scene setting and stage directions (exit pursued by a bear) and then Shaw for eg it's incredibly precise. Thinking what difference that makes for directors and readers.

[tobee]

I love lots but I think Chekhov and Shaw best.

[WaterBird]

I just finished an amazingly beautiful play for my curriculum, "Eurydice" by Sarah Ruhl. If you have any interest in mythology, you might like it, though it also has a modern twist to it as well. My copy has some other plays of hers as well so I think I'll read these.

[MealyPotatoes]

I like reading the collections of plays
for the National Theatre’s National Connections too. All written for schools and youth theatres. Some terrific work by loads of playwrights.

[MealyPotatoes]

As a previous poster said my list would be a million miles long...

Last few plays I read were Ubu by Alfred Jarry, Prometheus Unbound by Aeschylus, collected plays of Joe Orton and DNA by Denis Kelly. Oh and I’ve just started reading the script for the stage version of Made in Dagenham.

One of my favourite plays is Road by Jim Cartwright, probably because I used to do audition speeches from it years ago.

[Parthenope]

JM Synge, Brian Friel, Marina Carr, Thomas Kilroy, Edna Walsh, Tom Murphy, Martin McDonagh, Teresa Deevy? Seamus Heaney’s versions of classical plays, The Burial at Thebes (Antigone) and The Cure at Troy (Philoctetes).

Anything by Chekhov.

[FairfaxAikman]

Passing Places by Stephen Greenhorn and Tallys Blood by Anne-Marie Di Mambro are two of my favourites. Both very Scottish and both full of humour.

[Gentlemanwiththistledownhair]

From memory, I think Brecht spent a lot of time in the US during the war. He was involved in Hollywood writing scripts at one point. After Arturo Ui, he wouldn't have been very popular in Germany! (It was published during the war, I think that it's fantastic how clear headed the play is given the proximity of the events it's describing. It reads like it was written decades later with the benefit of hindsight)

[WaterBird]

Funnily enough, I just read Arturo Ui. It was pretty good. Also impressive that Brecht, being German, knew so much about life in Chicago.

[Gentlemanwiththistledownhair]

Brecht! Particularly The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, although I also enjoyed The Good Person of Szechwan.

I really enjoy he uses satire is used to explain huge events: Arturo Ui is a Chicago mobster intent on controlling the cauliflower trade and is a (very recognisable) parallel to Hitler's rise, hilarious in places and ridiculous but also really digs into the effects of mass hysteria.

[QuaterMiss]

My copy of When We Have Sufficiently Torrured Each Other should arrive today. (Hermes delivery. )

I've enjoyed other Martin Crimp texts, though this one has been torn apart by critics. Going to a workshop on it soon though. Had a second shot at the ballot for tickets yesterday - but have lost all inclination to see it.

[Racecardriver]

I really like Arthur millers plays for reading, they work quite well as a text.

[Annandale]

My favourite play is Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. I have a personal connection with The Sugar Wife and Fishskin Trousers by Elizabeth Kuti which I love too.

[WaterBird]

My curriculum list is fairly broad, but I know that there are many good plays that we're not reading.
I've just started Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party" and find it almost commical the way Meg and Petey tiptoe around each other... "Is it nice?" "Yes, very nice."

[DancelikeEmmaGoldman]

I love Christopher Fry, especially The Lady’s Not for Burning. He’s considered twee and old-fashioned nowadays, but his limpid humour and compassion are engaging.

Under Milkwood is a miracle.

I enjoy O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey into Night. Angsty and dark, but ultimately satisfying.

I think Shakespeare is better heard and seen than read, but The Tempest is full of terrifically exciting stuff, and great speeches.

I have a soft spot for the rude vigour of English mystery plays. Once you get past the language barrier they’re often very funny.

Have you seen this project? It’s brilliant - there are three sets of six speeches.

www.theguardian.com/stage/series/shakespeare-solos

[QuaterMiss]

Presumably you have a curriculum reading list? How broad is it?

[CherryBlossom23]

Translations by Brian Friel if you want something a little different to British playwrights

[eurochick]

I was going to suggest Earnest!

[EyesUnderARock]

The more the merrier, personally I dislike Beckett and Pinter.
You could go classical as well, many Ancient Greek plays are lovely and worth the time, as are some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries.

[WaterBird]

Thank you all.
I completely forgot tually did read a Wilde play once, "The Importance of Being Earnest."