TT: All-American (II)

One good list deserves another, so here are the ten American plays I most wish I'd written. The second "play" is actually an evening-long bill of one-act plays by the same author, but it's my list, so I decided to count it as a single work.

As with my previous list of American novels, the word best was nowhere in my mind when I drew up this roster. Since I've lately become a playwright myself, I suppose you could say that I have more of a stake in this list than its predecessor, but the standards for inclusion are identical: these are the ten American plays that mean the most to me personally. I love them and identify with them, and though I will never live long enough to write anything remotely as good, they collectively define the kind of play I'd like to be able to write:

• Horton Foote, The Trip to Bountiful

• William Inge, Come Back, Little Sheba

• David Ives, All in the Timing

• Warren Leight, Side Man

• Kenneth Lonergan, The Starry Messenger

• David Mamet, American Buffalo

• Lynn Nottage, Crumbs from the Table of Joy

• Thornton Wilder, Our Town

• Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

• August Wilson, Fences