Are American plays taught in school?
Posted by bare_books@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 223 comments
I love going to the theatre and I recently saw Broken Glass by Arthur Miller, who is generally considered one of the greatest American playwrights. This got me wondering, are playwrights studied in school, either specific plays (maybe like Death of a Salesman) or the theatre in general? Is one playwright taught more than others and, in your personal opinion, what would you consider the best of American theatre?
BreadPuddding@reddit
We had Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and Fences. There are a lot of other American plays that I think would be worth teaching, but we get more Shakespeare than anything else (I love Shakespeare and am not actually complaining about that).
dazzleox@reddit
Are you from Pittsburgh by chance? Very cool you did Fences.
waluwyatt@reddit
Fences was part of the AP Literature curriculum at my school in St. Louis, MO
unlimited_insanity@reddit
Fences was required but Death of a Salesman was optional at my school in CT.
dazzleox@reddit
I am happily surprised that august wilson is taught in this many american high schools
unlimited_insanity@reddit
The parallels between Death of a Salesman and Fences are fantastic to teach. Super easy for even average students to choose a focus and write a comparison essay between the two. The promise and failure of the American dream as experienced by a white family and a black family are laid out. And there are a lot of parallels in structure and character, too.
lyrasorial@reddit
I taught Fences in NYC. Not uncommon there.
benkatejackwin@reddit
I'd say August Wilson, and especially Fences, is pretty widely taught across the US currently.
QuietObserver75@reddit
I didn't do it in high school but read it in college, along with Streetcar and M. Butterfly.
BreadPuddding@reddit
No, I was in a Maryland suburb of DC. We did Death of a Salesman that same semester.
ReferenceCreative510@reddit
I also did Fences in high school
Emotional_Ad5714@reddit
I had to read a couple David Mamet plays in school.
yuukosbooty@reddit
We’re often taught American plays as well as Shakespeare in English class and then of course I also took theater classes in high school and college so we read a lot of plays there too from all over the world
ju5tjame5@reddit
The crucible by Arthur Miller is part of most schools English class curriculum. Other than that, the only plays you ever learn about are Shakespeare
HackDaddy85@reddit
My English class did more Greek and Shakespeare, never did any American playwrights.
EscherHS@reddit
Didn’t you do some Greek plays (Oedipus Rex, Antigone, etc.) as well?
ju5tjame5@reddit
No, but I've been realizing that maybe these curriculums aren't as standard as I thought. I was talking to my little brother a while ago and he has never read Of Mice and Men or Grapes of Wrath.
prickmoranis@reddit
I went to school in central California, and Steinbeck was a huge focus for us, but we also read a lot of William Saroyan and Gary Soto
Competitive_Toe2544@reddit
In our school we were never taught about American Drama, I had to go to the library to learn about that. A,little Shakespeare, but every year we did a popular American musical. I was in Bye Bye Birdie, and Tom Sawyer.
houdini31@reddit
I was taught many in high school
DeliciousMoments@reddit
There are a few that are taught to many high schoolers. Raisin in the Sun, The Glass Menagerie, and Our Town are the ones I remember.
Euphoric-Stress9400@reddit
Death of a Salesman, Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Pygmalion, Waiting for Godot, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the Crucible to name a few more.
KikiCorwin@reddit
We discussed Waiting For Lefty in a unit on the use theater as means of influencing politics. It was a lead in to The Crucible for us.
MattieShoes@reddit
George Bernard Shaw was Irish
So was Samuel Beckett
Euphoric-Stress9400@reddit
You’re right that one’s on me. Good catch.
KikiCorwin@reddit
We did a lot of them. Not just The Crucible, but The Matchmaker, A Jury of Her Peers, various works from Neil Simon, examining Mamet's dialog writing beside George Bernard Shaw's, and since A Few Good Men had just came out, we discussed the concept of the black box theater with excerpts from it.
Elivagara@reddit
Not in my schools but they were run by extremist evangelicals who never found a piece of work they didn't want to sensor into oblivion.
GravityTortoise@reddit
It was mostly Shakespeare plays.
whistlen@reddit
ee spent some time Our Town in english class
mutantmanifesto@reddit
Same and oh my god did I find it a bore
Zappagrrl02@reddit
I love Our Town. There’s a great version with Paul Newman.
oswin13@reddit
I was IN Our Town and it was boring.
papercranium@reddit
I never liked Our Town until I moved to a small New England town and saw it performed by a community theater here. It has a lot more emotional resonance for me now.
Genepoolperfect@reddit
I was Emily & had to kiss my best guy friend. Then some freshman came up to us after & told me he got half mast over it.
High school was simultaneously both the best & the worst.
daveescaped@reddit
God geo me I loved it. I had my wife and I read a dialog from that when I proposed.
It’s simple and quaint and so very American.
Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit
Same and same!
Parking_Champion_740@reddit
I remember the crucible, our town, can’t recall what else
JadeHarley0@reddit
Yes! Death of a Salesman, the Crucible, Our Town, a Raisin in the Sun, all of those were plays I had to study for school.
And school theater clubs also keep important American plays alive as well.
NatAttack50932@reddit
I was taught Death of a Salesman in English and The Crucible in US History.
Veronica612@reddit
I was taught those plus A Long Day’s Journey into Night.
AleroRatking@reddit
Those two plus raisin in the sun
Oakland-homebrewer@reddit
me three. early 80s
Oh plus the Woody Allen play where he plays chess with Death
Oakland-homebrewer@reddit
Oh, how could I forget Romeo & Juliet.
we did that in Catholic school in 8th grade and I didn't get it. Did it again in public school for 9th grade with a way better teacher and I really enjoyed it. Got the language, the puns, the drama.
RobotShlomo@reddit
If they taught that one where I went I would have actually paid attention.
RandomPaw@reddit
Interesting. We were taught Our Town, The Crucible and The Glass Menagerie
NatAttack50932@reddit
I did our town but it was in my theater studies elective class, so I didn't include it.
FixergirlAK@reddit
We had The Children's Hour, Death of a Salesman, uhhhh, Glass Menagerie. This was for HS lit classes, theatre was a bunch more obviously. At least part of To Have and Have Not, which isn't a play but close enough.
Teri-k@reddit
Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A Streetcar Named Desire, A Raisin in the Sun, The Glass Menagerie. One of my English teachers was also the Drama instructor and we studied a lot of plays.
gardenofthought@reddit
The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire are all pretty common in high school English
Snoo-26158@reddit
Usually, though the American education system is very chaotic and different drastically from city to city.
CardiganHeretic@reddit
The only plays we got were Shakespeare, connected to our English classes.
meganemistake@reddit
In my english classes we sometimes read one act plays like the Glass Menagerie and then longer ones are typically Shakespeare. Some were up to the teacher's choice to some extent? I got to read one of my favorites in 10th grade english: A Raisin in the Sun.
Most of them will also involve showing a movie adaptation. I remember read+watching 2 different Romeo and Juliet adaptations as well as Midsummer Night's Dream, The Crucible, and the two plays named prior! There were typically a few plays learned per year in highschool?
xnatlywouldx@reddit
Yes. Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, and Thornton Wilder are canonically taught in the majority of American high school English curriculum. The book from "West Side Story" is sometimes taught in tandem with a unit on Romeo and Juliet.
holymacaroley@reddit
We aren't taught many plays, honestly, but yes the ones we are taught usually involve a couple American plays and then a few Shakespearean. I was a theatre kid, would have loved more in the curriculum. I know we did The Crucible, not really sure what else because I majored in theatre in college 30+ years ago so now I'm a bit fuzzy on which was high school as opposed to university.
sean8877@reddit
Those plays are all depressing, we had to see the Glass Menagerie and Death of a Salesman. Doom and gloom, never had a desire to see them again.
Smorgas-board@reddit
The Crucible was the big one I remember
Constellation-88@reddit
We did The Crucible in English and…Glass Menagerie.
Zealousideal_Top20@reddit
When I was in school we studied Arthur Miller and raisin in the sun and the crucible. Not sure what they teach now since most plays with any artistic or literary merit probably touch on racial/sexual/political topics that are illegal to cover in school these days
lavasca@reddit
Our Town
Unsolven@reddit
Shakespeare is taught the most because it’s Shakespeare. Shakespeare is really the basis of all English literature.
Arthur Miller is usually taught, often either Death of Saleman or the Crucible —or both. Tennessee Williams is also pretty commonly taught. Then there are specific plays that will be taught (or produced) in schools pretty commonly such as “Our Town.”
knysa-amatole@reddit
My high school English class read Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and Raisin in the Sun.
I think the best of American theater is Angels in America.
IndigoAnima@reddit
I was required to read The Great Gatsby at some point in high school
pm-me-kitten-pix@reddit
My high school had a theater club that would put on plays. I know we read hamlet and a few other Shakespeare plays in high school, but that's it. I really wasn't introduced to stage performance plays at all until college.
Branagain@reddit
We did Oklahoma once and only once.
There were two stupid reasons for this, both involving guns in school that really shouldn't have been there. First the school went into lockdown and was swarming with SWATs when one of the theater kids tried to bring in the prop rifles without telling the school cop first.
The second incident was particularly stupid, and still astounds me to this day that anyone thought it was a good idea. They used a real gun loaded with blanks fired backstage for the sound effect for a scene in a barn where there was shooting. Later, after the play, the kid that was working the real gun was screwing around with it and fired a blank round directly against his own head thinking it wouldn't hurt. Instead he died of massive brain trauma on a life flight halfway to UMC Las Vegas to get a hole drilled in his skull to relieve the pressure of his swelling brain.
LetterheadClassic306@reddit
yeah we definitely study american plays in high school english classes. death of a salesman is probably the most common along with the crucible by arthur miller. a raisin in the sun by lorraine hansberry gets taught a lot too. if you want to read them, grab a collected arthur miller plays or a death of a salesman edition. for my money the best american theatre is tennessee williams' a streetcar named desire. the language is just incredible. o'neill's long day's journey into night is heavier but brilliant
Ill-Butterscotch1337@reddit
Yes they are. Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams are probably the most common.
CSILalaAnn@reddit
My high school offered Theater as an elective. I took it Sophomore through Senior Year. We studied plays, movies, musicals. Performed for the school and competed in one act play competitions.
kidthorazine@reddit
Yes, not counting theater classes, which are optional, we did a unit on the Crucible and a unit on A Streetcar Named Desire in high school.
spintool1995@reddit
I was wondering how many others did the Crucible. I grew up a few miles from where it happened. For us it was local history, not just US history. I'm descended from two of the characters.
maybach320@reddit
We watched the Crucible and Our Town.
QueenShewolf@reddit
I've read Death or a Salesman, A Raisin in the Sun, The Crucible, and The Glass Menagerie in high school. Out of all of these, The Crucible is my favorite.
I saw Denzel Washington in A Raisin the Sun on Broadway, and it was phenomenal.
Redbubble89@reddit
Crucible was big. Shakespeare which i dont see the merit much anymore.
Courwes@reddit
Crucible and so much Shakespeare. We read Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Taming of the Shrew, a Midsommers Nights Dream and Julius Caesar.
AnorakWithAHaircut@reddit
Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams were pretty widely taught in the area where i grew up.
life_experienced@reddit
Shakespeare wasn't American, though.
AnorakWithAHaircut@reddit
No shit?
GreenBeanTM@reddit
They pointed it out because the question is specifically asking about America playwrights
MarkNutt25@reddit
No. I don't remember studying a single American play in school. Literally the only plays I remember being taught were Shakespeare.
Curmudgy@reddit
That’s my recollection, too. But it was a long time ago.
I did, however, manage to take in some summer stock one summer when I was away at a high school program. I remember seeing Spoon River Anthology (an adaptation of the collection) and I think A Little Night Music. Maybe one or two others, but I don’t remember.
dgmilo8085@reddit
No Crucible or 12 Angry Men?
Right_Two_5737@reddit
Same. I’m from Georgia.
Far_Silver@reddit
Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams are the big ones.
daveescaped@reddit
Our Town, The Crucible, Tennessee Williams; all were taught and all are still taught.
DeniseReades@reddit
Taught? We acted them out. Everyone was assigned a role for a certain group of pages and then we had to act it out in front of the entire class. Then, we had a group discussion about what it meant.
We did The Crucible and Raisin in the Sun in 9th
10th grade was world literature so we did the play version of The Odyssey and Romeo and Juliet
11th grade we did Hamlet (I know, British not American), Death of a Salesman and 12 Angry Men
12th was Streetcar named Desire and dramatic reenactment of The Raven.
We were taught 4 plays each year, in addition to our usual assigned readings, so I know I'm forgetting some.
I actually really liked 10th grade because we were reading the Odyssey while doing the play version so it felt like a lighter courseload
pinkrobot420@reddit
The Crucible, Julius Cesar and Macbeth
Stepjam@reddit
We were taught Death of a Salesman and The Crucible in Highschool.
StupidLemonEater@reddit
We also did Raisin in the Sun.
TheCloudForest@reddit
We also did all four of those, plus a few others. The Iceman Cometh and Our Town.
Litzz11@reddit
We did that one, too.
SaintsFanPA@reddit
Same. I'd wager these are the two most commonly taught in US schools.
AncientGuy1950@reddit
Oh yeah, lots of scenery to chew on, the problem is, outside of family of the cast and crew no one came to those productions.
Musicals had full houses.
timstiefler@reddit
Fences is right up
SavannahInChicago@reddit
The Crucible is pretty popular in most schools.
No_Entertainment_748@reddit
Death of a salesman in middle school and because of where i lived the music man was heavily pushed in elementary school.
ITrCool@reddit
Yup! I was homeschooled and even we studied American literature and various plays in our upper grades and into high school. We had chances to act in community theater productions too, so we got chances at being involved in theater. I got to be in Meredith Wilson's Music Man!!
SabresBills69@reddit
plays are taught as part of English class in high school. many schools does some sort of play/ musical each as an after school project dine 1-2 times a yr.
my school in late spring would do a local field trip to a performing arts center about 30 min away that did summer plays/ musicals
Apocalyptic0n3@reddit
I think the only plays we studied were Shakespeare.
MyUsername2459@reddit
Every year in High School we had to cover a different one of Shakespeare's plays.
I remember we had to do Romeo & Juliet our Freshman year, and Julius Caesar our Sophomore year. I don't remember what we read the other two years.
We also had to read Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie.
There were probably others, but that's what I remember.
aardvarksauce@reddit
Curriculum differs state by state and even district to district. Not all high schoolers in the same school take the exact same courses either. So while some of us have had classes that teach certain plays, others may never have had that.
KennstduIngo@reddit
"Curriculum differs state by state and even district to district."
Yeah, it is crazy to me when people say "most schools" do this or that for these types of questions. Like how could one possibly know the Crucible is part of "most" high school curriculums?
Castronautik@reddit
I am actually kindof confused by the question. What does studying a play mean? You read the play in class or something? My school's English classes did not ever read plays, only novels. I was in drama class one year, and while we performed a play near the end of the school year, I wouldn't say we studied the play.
dazzleox@reddit
You guys never read Shakespeare? A little surprised. We did Macbeth and A Midsummer Nights Dream in the basic English class. They also did Hamlet in honors English.
life_experienced@reddit
We had Julius Caesar. So uninteresting to read, but I guess the school didn't want to deal with any dirty jokes or romance.
Castronautik@reddit
We did not in any of my classes. I was in a smaller school so there were a couple of English teachers, could have happened in one of the other teacher's classes but not in mine.
xxxjessicann00xxx@reddit
You never read any Shakespeare in English class?
Castronautik@reddit
Not in any of my classes. I somehow got lumped in the lower tier English class my freshman year, the more normal/medium English the next 2 years, and honors english my Senior year. We did not read any Shakespeare.
j33@reddit
That’s interesting, we definitely read Shakespeare in my high school, even tackled Chaucer and Beowulf when I was a senior.
docmoonlight@reddit
Interesting - you didn’t read any Shakespeare? We definitely read some plays as literature in high school English classes.
Castronautik@reddit
Nope. The only way I think we might have if its was like a small section of our overall English books. I don't remember what all we did, but we never read like a whole play the same way we would have a book.
Square-Platypus4029@reddit
We read and analyzed a Shakespeare play in each year of high school English (plus The Glass Menagerie and Our Town). The year that we did American Lit we did King Lear plus read a novel with similar themes (A Thousand Acres).
Dead_before_dessert@reddit
When we studied plays it would ne very similar to studying a novel. You're going over the themes, the language, character motivations, symbolism and all that stuff. A lot of times we'd also talk about things like monologues that break the third wall...why did the author choose that mechanic?
It was always more fun because we'd assign parts and read aloud or even reenact scenes. My town had a very active theater scene both through the local college and the local community theater so we would also see a variety of plays each year. For example even though "to kill a mockingbird" wasnt originally written as a play, we read the book, watched the old movie with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch (still one of my favorite books and movies) and then went out to watch it performed as a play.
Then we discussed the differences in how the story was presented across different mediums and what we thought influenced the various choices.
frisky_husky@reddit
Yes. I took British Lit in high school instead of American Lit (mutually exclusive there), which is where a lot of classic American books and plays were taught, but even so I read A Raisin in the Sun, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Fences in school at some point. As for the best of American theatre, my personal canon would certainly include (at least) Long Day's Journey into Night, A Raisin in the Sun, and Angels in America.
As Fran Lebowitz once noted, the AIDS crisis was disastrous for American theatre, because it killed off many of the promising young writers and performers, as well as a lot of the most discerning audience for new and innovative stage productions, which consisted largely of queer men in New York City. The social reproduction of non-musical theatre culture stopped, and it hasn't really regained the momentum it once had.
pook_a_dook@reddit
I mostly remember the things we read in high school. Mostly each year there was a theme at my school. Freshman year was women and minority authors so we read things like The Joy Luck Club, The House on Mango St, Native Son, etc. Sophomore year was American literature so Mark Twain, F Scott Fitzgerald, Steinbeck were all on offer and we read Death of a Salesman. Junior year was British and world literature, so Shakespeare and Dickens, but also we read A Dolls House by Ibsen. Senior year was a mixed bag because you could take college level AP courses and the coursework for that was more nationally standardized and even the non AP students studied mostly the same works. Each year we’d read one or two plays that fit the theme of the course but you can see how there wasn’t time to cover too many American playwrights.
anonymouse278@reddit
In a major urban public school system in the 90s/aughts, we studied The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, Our Town, and probably some other American plays but these are the ones that I recall off the top of my head. It was as you can see tilted a bit heavy towards Tennessee Williams, but these were spread over four years- in no single school year did we cover two plays by the same author.
I did attend an arts-intensive magnet school, and only a few of these were taught in English class- others were taught or produced in drama classes. We did also cover many plays by non-Americans.
I don't think my experience is typical (not many American high school students take four years of theater classes), but we definitely did study American theater as part of our general language arts curriculum. I think Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams probably get (or at least used to get) the most coverage, and their works are also frequently performed in schools- The Crucible is popular for its links to two different eras of American history, and everything Tennessee Williams because there's nothing more satisfying to produce for Theater Kids than Tennessee Williams in all his glorious melodrama.
Responsible-Care-388@reddit
ITT: Death of a Salesman & The Crucible
TheyMakeMeWearPants@reddit
My school also did Waiting For Godot, although that doesn't quite fit the question since Beckett is Irish.
GaryJM@reddit
I went to school in Scotland and even we studied Death of a Salesman.
russki516@reddit
Not when I was in school. We did some Shakespeare, and attended a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in middle school. We did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in high school, but didn't see it. We had students read the parts in class. I was one of the two but can't remember which lol
Outrageous_Chart_35@reddit
We learn about "Our American Cousin," but it's by an English playwright
SpaceFroggy1031@reddit
In my HS, it was only The Crucible. Of course we did Shakespear, but Miller was our only American. --We kid of had a lot to cover between foundational Western/ English lit, American lit, and a touch of modern Euro lit. While it would have been nice to Tennessee Williams it, it's just diffucult to fit that into the HS cross section. Honestly sounds more like a mid to upper undergrad class.
tenehemia@reddit
Yeah, I was in The Skin of Our Teeth, Guys & Dolls and Arsenic and Old Lace. The year before I went to high school they did West Side Story.
BookLuvr7@reddit
My school mostly had things like To Kill A Mockingbird. Thankfully my school wasn't afraid to teach about racism bc they knew if they didn't, they'd be perpetuating it.
I'm currently in a red state that banned that book, and the number of racist comments I come across are horrifying.
dgmilo8085@reddit
We studied a number of American plays when I went through school. Obviously, we studied Shakespeare and whatnot, but for strictly American plays, I remember studying Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, The Miracle Worker, and Twelve Angry Men. I am sure there were more, but I am old and forgetful now.
Semirhage527@reddit
We read an excerpt from A Raisin in the Sun in 6th grade. (And just saw that play this weekend in fact!)
We read and took a field trip to see Our Town in middle school too. I always loved that one
norecordofwrong@reddit
Crucible, Death of a Salesman, and The Glass Menagerie in class.
I did tech for the theater kids so I participated in a lot more theater but not in the acting.
Spirited-Way2406@reddit
Gray-haired Alaskan. The standard high school curriculum in my area had two years of mostly the mechanics of English grammar and composition, with some literature, followed by one of American literature and one of British. It did not occur to me until just now that we never read any American plays. Huh.
On the other hand, we have both a robust high school drama program (as an option, not required) and a lively community theater program, so there are at least half a dozen plays put on each year in this very small town. The American scripts are mostly musicals, although I have seen All My Sons, Arsenic and Old Lace, and some others whose names I can't remember, such as a one-woman play about Emily Dickinson and one about a family of nice Southern sisters slowly unraveling, then putting itself back together, as they grapple with the ugly truths of their lives.
RobotShlomo@reddit
We read Death of a Salesman and All My Sons. I really didn't care for any of them.
Wild_Ticket1413@reddit
We read a few plays in high school. Those include several of Shakespeare's works, Pygmalion, and Raisin in the Sun.
Novels were most of the curriculum, though.
oswin13@reddit
For sure Death of Salesman and The Crucible. I feel like there were others but I might be mixing up high school and college
SmoovCatto@reddit
American playwrights Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams are effectively banned in public high school curricula because material has sexual themes . . . and they were gay . . .
anneofgraygardens@reddit
American plays I read in school were The Glass Menagerie, Long Day's Journey into Night, Death of a Salesman, and JB. And possibly other things I've forgotten.
MuppetManiac@reddit
I read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Raisin in the Sun in school. Plus Shakespeare, and Rozencantz and Guildenstern are dead. Also The Crucible.
No_Seaworthiness8176@reddit
Can't speak much to this topic. Depends on the school and the district and the student's electives.
I was taught this. Absolutely despised Death of a Salesman. Hit too close to home I guess.
My sons not so much. Lots of Shakespeare and some of the Greek classics, but not American theatrical stuff.
jessek@reddit
I read The Zoo Story and The American Dream by Edward Albee for a sophomore English class.
Insightseekertoo@reddit
I read a number of plays in my high school career, which consisted of three different schools in three different states. I read Romeo and Juliet, Death of a Salesman, Metamorphosis, A Raisin in the Sun, The Crucible, I can't remember the others.
lithomangcc@reddit
Death of Salesman in Junior Highschool
Boopa0011@reddit
In high school, I remember reading Death of a Salesman, A Soldier's Play, and Our Town in American lit.
We also read Julius Caesar, MacBeth, and Top Girls in British lit.
I specifically recall that the American lit teacher normally taught The Crucible but for some reason we did not read that in our class - and kids older or younger than us (from other grades) were jealous because it was widely disliked.
FlyingCupcake68@reddit
Plays are taught in English classes, but not as theater.
sammysbud@reddit
We read The Crucible, Fences, and a Streetcar Named Desire.
seifd@reddit
There are some that are taught in regular English courses. Everyone will have read some Shakespeare. I definitely remembering being taught The Crucible as well. My high school offered theater arts class, which involved reading plays and writing sketch comedy. I definitely remember reading Pygmallion, A Raisin In The Sun, and The Death of a Salesman in that class.
This doesn't include the school plays, which aren't part of any actual class.
Imaginary_Ladder_917@reddit
Most of the ones listed here I would agree with as a former high school teacher, plus possibly Twelve Angry Need Men.
Darkdragoon324@reddit
I remember Death of a Salesman in English, but then I think the o my other plays I remember from school were Shakespeare and Ibsen.
Turdle_Vic@reddit
Depends. I only remember Shakespeare tbh
DropEdge@reddit
In many states, Junior/eleventh grade English focuses on American literature, and that’s when you’re most likely to read American plays.
ehrenzoner@reddit
There is a wide variation because US education is not monolithic, with each state given autonomy to determine its curriculum. Even within states, there are different school districts that also develop their own programs, and schools and individual teachers can choose too.
Having said that, I can recall my literature courses covering the important American playwrights like Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Thornton Wilder, Lorraine Hansberry. Honors and advanced classes also covered Eugene O'Neill, Sam Shepard, Tony Kusher, David Mamet.
AncientGuy1950@reddit
If you take theater classes, you'll get the whole gamete of US Stage authors, though in my day, they mostly focused on musical productions. They were the cash cows that sold tickets and brought in interest from colleges for performers. We got a dose of Shakespear as well, because it's the law that English speaking theater must do the bard, particularly Othello and the Scottish play... But not Romeo and Juliet, because the text made Julie's age very very clear, and we can't have childhood suicide, can we?
We also studied stage production, the school paid to get us trained and licensed for the lighting and audio systems, which turned out to be profitable because local productions and concerts would hire us despite being 'just kids'.
We covered stage management, working curtains, scrims, and backdrops (which also got us hired by production companies) the basics of costuming and make up.
Theater was fun, and for me, a break from my math heavy engineering prep. (I had no illusions about my acting skills, I was fairly good as a high school student, severely lacking as a college student, and smart enough to not try and fail at movies and television.
Atlas7993@reddit
Not that I remember.
Weary_Capital_1379@reddit
I didn’t in high school. But a college freshman I took a course in drama. Not acting. Reading great plays and analyzing them. From different eras. Greek? Elizabethan, modern. Including foreign authors like Chekhov.
Khpatton@reddit
As others have explained, states vary in their required curricula and many students take more advanced English classes than the minimum required to graduate.
That being said, I went to school in one of the lowest-ranked states for education, and I can only think of one non-Shakespearean play we studied: The Crucible. That was in my “honors” (advanced coursework) classes. We studied a lot of novels, poetry, and some essays, but relatively few plays.
Accomplished_Will226@reddit
They were in my school but by the time my kids went it was an elective. My daughter and her crowd all got into theater. My son was not interested then and less interested now! We did Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller etc My daughter did a lot of musicals.
John628556@reddit
No plays were assigned in English courses? No Shakespeare, no Arthur Miller?
WahooLion@reddit
I was a drama major in college. While I didn’t take any theatre courses in high school, I was very involved in the theatre club and productions. We had a one-act play contest. We studied American and other playwrights in English class.
P00PooKitty@reddit
Yes during American lit. Death of a salesman, fences, the crucible, etc.
Cerulean_IsFancyBlue@reddit
Twelve Angry Men, a “teleplay” so not strictly a theater production in it’s original format, but I remember doing a table read of it in English class.
Eat--The--Rich--@reddit
Til America has playwrights
Great_Chipmunk4357@reddit
Yes, we studied plays in English class.
thatotterone@reddit
Death of a Salesman in English class as others have said
We also read and preformed Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel
Hmmm, George Kaufman, T. Wilder, Tennessee Williams.. Junior year was dedicated to American poets, playwrights, and authors.
time frame was late 80s/early 90s
yellowdaisycoffee@reddit
For me, they were, but curriculum varies.
moonbunnychan@reddit
Thinking about it...I can't remember ever reading an American play in school. I did our spring musical every year, but that's an extracurricular and not really the same.
Cock--Robin@reddit
I went to a small high school - about 200 students total - but we still put on multiple plays every year, all American. I was either in or on the crew for many of them.
pmonichols@reddit
As others have stated, Death of a Salesman and the Crucible are required reading in many high schools. I loved reading both of them!
Durham1988@reddit
Arthur Miller. Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams maybe but they are usually reserved for college because they are more racy.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
Yes. I remember studying All My Sons, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Streetcar Named Desire. We also studied an Ibsen play and a couple of Shakespeare plays in high school.
clap_yo_hands@reddit
Our English classes did teach a few plays. We did the lottery by Shirley Jackson, Romeo and Juliet, Jules Caesar and Macbeth. If you take a public speaking class (often required) there are typically monologue or dramatic interpretations from plays included in the curriculum. Every high school and most junior highs have drama class or drama club that puts on plays.
ijswijsw@reddit
Curriculums vary by school district and program. I remember being taught The Crucible and Long Day's Journey Into Night. Never read Death of a Salesman like many of the other commenters.
TomPastey@reddit
Plays I remember reading in HS:
American:
The Crucible
Not American:
Romeo and Juliet
Julius Caesar
Hamlet
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
A Doll's House
Pygmalion
Clearly my high school preferred non-American plays.
Litzz11@reddit
We certainly were taught them but I went to school many many decades ago, also I was involved in theater. We learned about Thornton Wilder and Arthur Miller (I remember reading The Crucible in English class).
But we also read Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros in French class (and we read it in French). So maybe my school was more theater-oriented.
TruCat87@reddit
We covered plays as part of our English class. And I also took theatre as one of my electives so I got a little more there too.
Ranger_Prick@reddit
The Crucible and A Raisin in the Sun are two that I taught when I was a HS English teacher. There are certainly others, but those two will certainly be high on any list.
Plays are difficult to teach because they're best consumed as performance rather than reading, and let's just say quality performance is not an easy thing to capture in a class full of self-conscious teenagers.
Rvtrance@reddit
Honestly I’m going with Matt Stone and Trey Parker. They only did the Book of Mormon. But it’s so good that I’m giving it to them as my favorite. Although I know there are more deserving people. I can’t it help it.
xxxjessicann00xxx@reddit
I don't remember any American plays. We did a Shakespeare play in each grade.
feliciates@reddit
In Honors English we studied Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A Streetcar Named Desire, and A Long Day's Journey Into Night
AliMcGraw@reddit
I was taught Inherit the Wind, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, Our Town, The Glass Menagerie, Streetcar, and four by Shakespeare (R+J, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and As You Like It). Plus a couple in language classes.
AliMcGraw@reddit
Oh plus our school put on two plays and a musical every year and students went one afternoon to the dress rehearsal, so I saw a bunch of more obscure ones that way. Plus field trips into the city.
_Smedette_@reddit
I am An Old, but I remember reading Romeo and Juliet, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and A Raisin in the Sun.
brokenman82@reddit
The only one we read was the crucible. But we had a theater group and I’d assume they learned tons of them
HermioneMarch@reddit
We did Our Town, the Crucible and Glass Menagerie
Rvtrance@reddit
Yeah for sure. Shakespeare, Dickens, and many more.
rinky79@reddit
I read A Raisin in the Sun in school.
I read more Shakespeare, though.
78723@reddit
The only American plays I remember reading were “our town” and “the glass menagerie.”
Other plays I read included “rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead” “long days journey into night” and various Shakespeare.
MammothReputation298@reddit
In high school we did Our Town, The Glass Menagerie, The Crucible, maybe others I don't remember.
Clydelaz@reddit
We read Julius Caesar by Shakespeare in 8th grade.
ssinff@reddit
Our Town, Glass Menagerie, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, maybe one or two more. That's what I can remember.
East_Rough_5328@reddit
We studied American plays the year we did American literature. So crucible, death of a salesman, our town, and glass menagerie were all covered (there may have been more, it’s been over 20 years).
BombardierIsTrash@reddit
Death of a salesman and the crucible was taught in high school English class to pretty much every single person I’ve met on the east coast.
librarygoose@reddit
We did Death of a Salesman, Glass Menagerie, Our Town,...ugh and about 3 or 4 more I can't remember off hand. It's been about 20 years since High School.
nowhereman136@reddit
Crucible
Death of a Salesman
Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet (other Shakespeare)
Waiting for Godot
Raisin in the Sun
Streetcar Named Desire
Our Town
Those are the big ones. There are a ton of school districts in the US and each has their own curriculum, and each curriculum changes over time. So no school does all those plays and plays I didn't mention aren't off limits if a school wants to do them
smorones@reddit
Yes…Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, the Glass Menagerie, Our Town, Streetcar
GobbyHopalong@reddit
Along with others mentioned here, the high schools I went to also covered A Raisin in the Sun and Inherit the Wind for American playwrights. Plays were typically covered in literature/English classes, but I got Inherit the Wind in a history class.
CleansingFlame@reddit
I read Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill in high school, though I can't recall if it was in the core classes or AP English.
malachite_13@reddit
Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, Our Town, Driving Miss Daisy and Raisin in the Sun are commonly taught in HS English classes.
hannahstohelit@reddit
I went to private school but from 9th to 11th we did a Shakespeare play (Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet) and a modern play (A Raisin in the Sun, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Glass Menagerie) each year. Two of the three of those are American so I guess so…
evet@reddit
We were taught Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the Sun.
IJustWorkHere000c@reddit
American Lit will typically cover great american playwrites....performing arts classes like drama will learn about them and put on plays.
severinusofnoricum@reddit
When I was in high school in the 80s it was Our Town and Julius Caesar unless you were in drama.
Reasonable-Record494@reddit
There wasn't as much of a focus on plays as on novels, but we still did some Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill. Tennessee Williams is probably my favorite, I think he gets the South in a way very similar to the way Faulkner does.
RockShowSparky@reddit
There was a drama class or whatever in High School. I didn’t ever watch any plays but I did play bass in the Sound of Music one year.
Bubbly_Following7930@reddit
Not much for me. The only one I remember is the Crucible.
jsnov@reddit
I studied The Crucible and Inherit the Wind in high school. Not sure if it's federal state or district level, but at my high school 11th grade was exclusively American literature, though mostly novels and poetry.
Im a sub and an 11th grade class was studying A Raisin in the Sun.
dangleicious13@reddit
The only somewhat American play I remember hearing about in school was the one that Lincoln was watching when he was shot.
It premiered in the US, but was written by an English man.
IHaveBoxerDogs@reddit
“Our American Cousin.” I don’t know who the playwright was.
dangleicious13@reddit
Tom Taylor
MsPandaLady@reddit
To be honest the only real playwright we were taught was Shakespeare. I can't think of any other so I am going to say no we don't.
I only know of Strretcar of Desire, thus Tennesse Williams because of the Simpsons.
sfdsquid@reddit
Streetcar Named Desire
STELLA!!!!
MsPandaLady@reddit
Oh yeah duh! I knew that!
Regular_Boot_3540@reddit
I don't think we studied any plays in middle school or high school. We did watch "MacBeth" in English class for some reason, though. Some schools offer Shakespeare classes, but mine didn't. I didn't read many plays in school until junior college and college. I think Eugene O'Neill is right up there with Arthur Miller in terms of great playwrights. Tennessee Williams, too. Edward Albee, though I hated most of his plays.
Dead_before_dessert@reddit
Yep. Like others have mentioned: tons of Shakespeare, the crucible, death of a salesman, Our Town, The Glass Menagerie and a slew of others I'm sure I can't remember.
We would also do different plays in drama class, and for choir we did a variety of musicals every year.
MortimerDongle@reddit
Commonly yes, in 10th grade we covered The Crucible and The Glass Menagerie
LABELyourPHOTOS@reddit
Yeah, plays are a part of English language arts.
Miller, Williams, Wilder and of course Shakespeare.
mads_61@reddit
I remember reading Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and The Glass Menagerie in high school. There might have been more.
MrDAHicks@reddit
Not generally...
All of the American plays I learned about in school about were musicals (Showboat and Sound of Music, both due to their historical settings... And also Hamilton kind of), and those musicals had film adaptations that we watched so it's definitely a lot different than studying Shakespeare scripts (Hamilton was more of a "how do you do, fellow kids thing lmao)
4ries20@reddit
One of my high school English teachers had us read A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, and we had a Stella! competition to mimic the one at our local Tennessee Williams festival.
I’m pretty sure we also read The Crucible.
But otherwise, no strong emphasis on American playwrights.
VitruvianDude@reddit
The classic playwrights that might be taught are Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neil, and Tennessee Williams. But they usually aren't taught.
rebby2000@reddit
It depends. Not every state has the same curriculum so what one state teaches another might not. Even within a state there are going to be differences.
For me, we read The Crucible (and I was lucky enough that a local theater was performing it at the time so I got to see it on stage as well) and Death of a Salesman is frequently taught. There might be some others that get taught but it's a lot more hit or miss and most likely done in elective drama classes.
Blue387@reddit
I remember Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and The Crucible, there may have been others
life_experienced@reddit
First I studied The Crucible by Arthur Miller in high school in the 1970s, then my kids studied it in the 2000s. It has relevance for 17th century and 20th century American history as well as for literature, and usually is integrated into the history and English curricula for one of these periods.
Maurice_Foot@reddit
Yeah, Death of a Salesman & The Crucible.
subsurd@reddit
Yes, in high school.
DharmaCub@reddit
Yes
Trinculo7@reddit
Not unless you take drama, sometimes maybe you’ll read a play in English class
-dag-@reddit
Yes, it's taught. We studiedDeath of a Salesman and our son just finished a unit on Miller's The Crucible.
StopNowThink@reddit
I learned mostly of William Shakespeare (and hated every second of it). Some specific English classes in high school may study a play, but generally only books.
There were electives for performing arts that may teach more, but it wasn't my jam.
NaomiiiTwinz@reddit
Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.
In my drama class, they weren't taught, but they were consistently used as a form of inspiration or guidance if needed.