Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
John Pielmeier (1949– )
Playwright, screen and television-film writer, actor, and director. His Broadway
dramas include The Boys of Winter (1985) and Voices in the Dark (1999).
David Rabe (1940 – )
Playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. His later dramas include Hurlyburly (1984),
Those the River Keeps (1994), and The Dog Problem (2001).
Paul Rudnick (1957– )
Playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and magazine columnist. His plays include
Cosmetic Surgery (1983), Raving (1984), I Hate Hamlet (1991), The Naked Eye
(1996), The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told (1998), and The New Century (2008).
Ntozake Shange (1948– )
African American playwright, poet, novelist, children’s writer, and feminist. Her
plays include A Photograph: A Study of Cruelty (1977), Spell #7 (1979), The Love
Space Demands (1992), and Hydraulics Phat [sic] Like Mean (1998).
John Patrick Shanley (1950 – )
Playwright, screenwriter, and director. His plays include Danny and the Deep Blue
Sea (1984), Italian-American Reconciliation (1988), and Psychopathia Sexualis (1996).
He won the Academy Award for best original screenplay for Moonstruck (1987).
Martin Sherman (1938– )
Playwright, screenwriter. His plays include Messiah (1984), When She Danced
(1989), Some Sunny Day (1996), and Rose (1999).
Neil Simon (1927– )
Since the 1960s America’s premier writer of stage comedy; also a screen and
television writer and librettist. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Lost in Yonkers.
His other plays include Barefoot in the Park (1963), The Odd Couple (1965), and
the autobiographical trilogy Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983), Biloxi Blues (1985),
and Broadway Bound (1986). He wrote the librettos for Little Me (1962), Sweet
Charity (1966), Promises, Promises (1969), They’re Playing Our Song (1979), and
The Goodbye Girl (1993) and the autobiographies Rewrites (1996) and The Play
Goes On (1999).
Steve Tesich (1942–1996)
Stage, screen, and television writer and novelist born in Yugoslavia. His plays
include Division Street (1980), Baptismal (1990), and Arts & Leisure (1996). He won
the Academy Award for best original screenplay for Breaking Away (1979).
Paula Vogel (1951– )
Feminist/lesbian playwright and educator. Her plays include The Oldest Profession
(1981), And Baby Makes Seven (1984), Desdemona—A Play about a Handkerchief
(1993), Hot ’n’ Throbbing (1994), The Mineola Twins (1996), The Long Christmas
Ride Home (2003), and A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration
(2004). In 2008 Vogel became chair of the playwriting department at the Yale
School of Drama.