If you’re serious about acting, you should be reading plays and seeing movies. A LOT of plays and movies. (You should be going to see plays, too, and as often as possible.) Here is a list of plays you MUST read to understand theatre, and to be truly aware of the roles available to you. START READING! (This is followed by a recommended list of films you should see, for the purpose of studying the acting.)
THE GREEKS:
Prometheus Bound Aeschylus
The Supplicants Aeschylus
Oedipus Rex Sophocles
Medea Euripides
Alcestis Euripides
The Trojan Women Euripides
Lysistrata Aristophanes
The Clouds Aristophanes
The Arbitration Menander
AFTER THE GREEKS, AND PRE-RENAISSANCE
The Pot of Gold Plautus (Roman)
Everyman In His Humour (Medieval) Anonymous
THE RENAISSANCE:
Doctor Faustus Marlowe
Tambulaine Marlowe
by Shakespeare:
Twelfth Night; A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Julius Caesar; The Taming Of The Shrew; Romeo & Juliet
The Merchant of Venice; Richard III; Hamlet
Macbeth; King Lear; Othello; The Tempest
Volpone Jonson
The Alchemist Jonson
THE FRENCH UNDER LOUIS XVI
El Cid Corneille
Phaedra Racine
by Moliere:
The Miser ; The Misanthrope; Tartuffe; The School For Wives
AFTER LOUIS, IN EUROPE
The Sheep Well (Spanish) Lope De Vega
Life Is A Dream (Spanish) Calderon
A School For Scandal (British) R.B. Sheridan
The Rivals (British) R.B. Sheridan
The Importance Of Being Ernest (British) Oscar Wilde
An Ideal Husband (British) Oscar Wilde
Faust (German) Goethe
Maria Stewart (German) Schiller
REALISM (Plays which attempt to be more real-to-life) AND MODERN THEATRE
A Month In The Country (Russian) Turgenev
A Doll’s House (Norwegian) Ibsen
An Enemy Of The People (Norwegian) Ibsen
Ghosts (Norwegian) Ibsen
The Ghost Sonata (Swedish) Strindberg
Miss Julie (Swedish) Strindberg
The Lower Depths (Russian) Gorky
The Inspector General (Russian) Gogol
by Anton Chekhov (Russian):
The Sea Gull; The Cherry Orchard
Uncle Vanya; The Three Sisters
20TH CENTURY AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS:
by Eugene O’ Neill
A Long Day’s Journey Into Night; A Moon For The Misbegotten
The Iceman Cometh; The Emperor Brown
by Maxwell Anderson
Elizabeth The Queen; Anne of the Thousand Days
The Bad Seed; High Tor; Winterset
You Can’t Take It With You Kaufman & Hart
The Man Who Came To Dinner Kaufman & Hart
Awake and Sing Clifford Odets
Waiting For Lefty Clifford Odets
The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams
Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller
The Crucible Arthur Miller
Picnic William Inge
Come Back, Little Sheba William Inge
Our Town Thornton Wilder
The Skin of Our Teeth Thornton Wilder
The Children’s Hour Lillian Hellman
Inherit the Wind Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee
A Raisin In The Sun Lorraine Hansbury
The Odd Couple Neil Simon
Barefoot In The Park Neil Simon
Brighton Beach Memories Neil Simon
The House of Blue Leaves John Guare
Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You In The Closet… Arthur Kopit
Indians Arthur Kopit
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Edward Albee
The Zoo Story Edward Albee
Seascape Edward Albee
American Buffalo David Mamet
Glengarry Glen Ross David Mamet
Talley’s Follys Lanford Wilson
Fences August Wilson
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom August Wilson
Uncommon Women and Others Wendy Wasserstein
Buried Child Sam Shepard
Angels In America Tony Kushner
MID-LATE 20TH CENTURY EUROPEANS AND OTHERS
by George Bernard Shaw (British):
Major Barbara; Man And Superman; Pygmalion
Heartbreak House; Arms And The Man
by Sean O’ Casey (Irish):
Cock-a-Doodle-Dandy; Juno & The Paycock; Shadow of a Gunman
by Bertolt Brecht (German):
Mother Courage and Her Children; The Good Person of Setzuan
The Threepenny Opera (a musical, with music by Kurt Weill)
The Caucasian Chalk Circle; Galileo
by Noel Coward
Blithe Spirit; Private Lives; Design For Living
Six Characters In Search of an Author (Italian) Luigi Pirandello
Henry IV (Italian) Luigi Pirandello
Waltz of the Toreadors (French) Jean Anouilh
The Lark (French) Jean Anouilh
The Madwoman of Chaillot (French) Jean Giraudoux
No Exit (French) Jean-Paul Sartre
Waiting For Godot (French) Samuel Becket
End Game (French) Samuel Becket
Rhinoceros (French) Eugene Ionesco
The Leader (French) Eugene Ionesco
Look Back In Anger (British) John Osborne
Luther (British) John Osborne
A Man For All Seasons (British) Robert Bolt
The Birthday Party (British) Harold Pinter
The Caretaker (British) Harold Pinter
Amadeus (British) Peter Shaffer
Equus (British) Peter Shaffer
Absurd Person, Singular Alan Ayckborn
Master Harold And The Boys (South African) Athol Fugard
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (British) Tom Stoppard
The Real Thing (British) Tom Stoppard
MUSICALS
(When studying a musical, one should get a recording of the score, and a script, and read the script, stopping when arriving at a song to listen, whenever possible! These are generally listed by composer/lyricist. This is a very basic overview of musical theatre.)
by Gilbert & Sullivan (British):
The Mikado; The Pirates of Penzance
by George M. Cohan (American)
(watch the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy, with James Cagney
by George Gershwin & Ira Gershwin (American):
Of Thee I Sing; Porgy & Bess
An American In Paris (movie, script by Alan J. Lerner)
by Irving Berlin (American):
Annie, Get Your Gun; White Christmas (the movie); Top Hat (the movie)
by Cole Porter
Kiss Me, Kate
by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
Babes In Arms; Pal Joey
by Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II
Oklahoma; Carousel; The King And I; South Pacific
by Frank Loesser
Guys & Dolls
How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying
by Frederick Loewe and Alan J. Lerner
My Fair Lady; Camelot; Gigi (the movie)
by Kurt Weill (with various collaborators)
Lady In The Dark (with Ira Gershwin)
Street Scene (with Langston Hughes)
Lost In The Stars (with Maxwell Anderson)
by Leslie Bricusse & Anthony Newley
Stop The World – I Want To Get Off
The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd
by John Kander & Fred Ebb
Cabaret
by Harvey Schmidt & Tom Jones
The Fantasticks
by Sherman Edwards
1776
by Andrew Lloyd Weber & Tim Rice
Jesus Christ, Superstar
Evita
By Lloyd Weber and others
Phantom of the Opera
by Jonathon Larson
Rent
by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Aherns
Ragtime
FILMS TO SEE AS AN ACTOR:
(Not in any particular order)
Casablanca; The Wizard of Oz; Citizen Kane; Schindler’s List; The Philadelphia Story; As Good As It Gets; The Godfather (all three movies); City Lights; Modern Times; The Kid; The Thin Man; It Happened One Night; Mr. Smith Goes To Washington; It’s A Wonderful Life; The Searchers; Wild Strawberries; Annie Hall, Manhattan; Some Like It Hot; To Kill A Mockingbird; Lawrence Of Arabia; Charade; Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner; Inherit The Wind (with Spencer Tracy); Raise The Red Lantern; Forrest Gump, Gandhi.
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