Who is the greatest living playwright?

This kind of question can’t really be answered, can it? Certainly not permanently… as today’s living playwrights become tomorrow’s Henrik Ibsen and Tennessee Williams – still great, but no longer living.

That said – who better to ask who today’s greatest living playwright is than some of today’s living playwrights themselves?

That’s exactly what Alexis Soloski did in The Village Voice on November 2, 2011.

Twenty playwrights answered this question, and the list that resulted included:

• Stephen Sondheim
• Tony Kushner
• Caryl Churchill
• Edward Albee
• Agustina Bessa-Luis
• Peter Handke
• Wole Soyinka
• Tom Stoppard
• …and more

And there are a few more choices in the comments of the article as well, so don’t pass those up! You can see the full article by clicking here.

Sure… the list above is only a snapshot in time. But why shouldn’t we ask ourselves this kind of question once in awhile? It gives us a goal to strive for and makes us think and reach out and find out more about other playwrights and scripts that we may not have read before.

It also gives us something to strive for – whether YOUR greatest playwright is on this list; whether YOUR greatest playwright is your choice because of one incredible script or because of an entire body of works – thinking about who WE would name the greatest living playwright makes us think about how WE can improve OUR OWN scripts, our own writing, our own acting, our own directing, our own theatrical lives in whatever goals we have.

Who do YOU think is the greatest living playwright? Tell us in the comments…