The Plays You Need to Know From the Last 100 Years
According to five American playwrights and a director.
By Juan A. Ramírez New York Times April 17, 2026
‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf’ (1976) by
Ntozake Shange
Clockwise from back left: Aku Kadogo, Laurie Carlos, Paula Moss, Seret Scott, Trazana Beverly and Rise Collins in a scene from the New York Shakespeare Festival’s 1976 production of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf.” Martha Swope © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
“The idea that you could take a bunch of poems, essentially, and create a theatrical event from them taught me a lot about how flexible theater can be,” says Hwang.
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