Drama Queens Review

This is a list of plays with either all, or majority, female casts. It was compiled in late 2012 by Daniel Goad through responses make by participants on the SCUDD list (Standing Conference of University Drama Departments, UK).

Please note some of these plays are unpublished and any further information would have to come from the authors

Many thanks to all concerned on SCUDD for sharing this. Please feel free to suggest additional titles using the comments section below.

·        Linda Aronson – Dinkum Assorted

·         Eve Ensler – The Vagina Monologues – 1996

·         Margaret Atwood – The Penelopiad

Julia Louise Barclay Word to Your Mama (2001)

·         Moira Buffini – Welcome to Thebes

·         Deborah Brevoort – The Women of Lockerbie

·      Amelia Bullmore Di and Viv and Rose (2011) – 3 women.

Caryl Churchill – Top Girls – 1982

·         Lynn Coughlan – Miracle

·         Dymphna Cusack – Morning Sacrifice – 1930s

·         April de Angelis – Playhouse Creatures

·         Denise Degan – Daisy Pulls It Off

·         Maureen Duffy – Rites

·         Nell Dunn – Steaming

·         Helena Enright – Walking Away – seven women and one man

·         Lisa Evans – Various

Maria Irene Fornes  Fefu and her Friends (1971) 8 Women

·     Pam Gems – Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi

·         Sue Glover – Bondagers

·         Dan Goggin – Nunsense – 1985

·         Robert Harling – Steel Magnolias – 1987

·         Tony Harrison – The Common Chorus, Part 1

·         Tomson Highway – The Rez Sisters

·         Charlotte Keatley – My Mother Said I Never Should – 1987

·         Fin Kennedy – The Unravelling – cast of six females, Kennedy has written a number of plays for all-female casts

·         Ladies of the Costa

·         Bryony Lavery – More Light

·         Rebecca Lenkiewicz – Her Naked Skin

·         Deborah Levy – The B File

·         Federico Garcia Lorca – House of Bernada Alba

·         Martin Lynch – Lay Up Your Ends – cast of 5 playing multiple roles, based on 1912 Belfast Linen Girls Strike

·         Tony Marchant – Raspbery – cast of three women

·         Nicola McCartney – Home By Me – first performed at Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in 2000

·         Linda McLean – Sex and God

·         Kathleen McCreery – The Chambermaids – predominantly female cast up to thirteen, based on strike at Grosvenor House Hotel in 70s, commissioned by Newcastle Polytechnic

·         Anthony Minghella – Whale Music

·         Kaite O’Reilly – Peeling – Cast of two disabled, one deaf, signing female performers

Louise Roche Big Pants and Botox

·         Virgilio Pinera – You Always Forget Something

• Ntozake Shange For Colored Girls Who Consider Suicide When the Rainbow is Not Enough…. (1974) 7 Woman

·         Sarah Sigal – Alice’s Adventures in the New World – 2010, set in 18^th Century, includes re-written music hall songs

Dave Simpson Girls Night Out (1998) Girls Night In (2001) The Naked Truth (2006)

·         Jessica Swale – Blue Stockings – Swale has written several other female dominated plays

·         Sudha Bhuchar – The House of Bilquis Bibi – transposition of House of Bernarda Alba set in Pakistan

·         Michel Tremblay – Albertine in Five Times

·         Michel Tremblay – Les Belles-Souers

·         Julie Wilkinson – Pinchdice and Co. – cast of four women, about a group of camp followers in a 12^th Century crusade

·         Julie Wilkinson – Mrs Beeton’s History of the World – two women

·         Julie Wilkinson – On Saturdays This Bed is Poland – cast of three women and one man, about migrant workers in Lincolnshire

Karin Young The Awkward Squad (4 women)

Lots of plays from Foursight Theatre (http://www.foursighttheatre.co.uk/):

·         The Secret Vice (1987) – 4 women

·         Mae West (1988) – 4 women

·         Hitler’s Women (1989) – 2 women

·         Mobs and Martyrs (1990) – 6 women

·         Helen (1990) – 3 women

·         Pink Smoke in the Vatican ­ The Mystery of Pope Joan (1991) – just the one

·         Shoot The Women First (1992) – 2 women

·         Bloody Mary and the Virgin Queen (1993) – 2 women

·         Frankenstein¹s Mothers (1994) – 3 women

·         Slap (1994) – just the one

·         The Trout Sisters (1996) – 3 women

·         Six Dead Queens and an Inflatable Henry! (1999) – 6!

·         Again (2006) co-production with The Bone Ensemble – just the one

·         Thatcher The Musical! (2006) – 9?

·         Can Any Mother Help Me? (2008) – 6

·         Bette & Joan: The Final Curtain (2011) – 2

And some collections:

100 Great Plays for Women -ed, Lucy Kerbel (Nick Hern 2013)

·         Six plays by Black and Asian women writers – ed. Kadija George

·         Seven plays by women – ed.  Cheryl Robson

·         Votes for women and other plays – ed. Susan Croft

·         Plays by Mediterranean women – ed. Marion Baraitser

·         A Touch of the Dutch, plays by Dutch women writers – ed. Cheryl Robson

·         Eastern Promise, 7 plays from central and eastern Europe – eds. Sian Evans and Cheryl Robson

·         Balkan Plots, new plays from Central and Eastern Europe – ed. Cheryl Robson