Every year since time immemorial (or really, since I started this job), I’ve been crunching the numbers for American Theatre‘s Top 10 Most-Produced Play list. It’s always exciting because it provides data points of what the American theatre field is excited about. Is the theatre interested in period romance, a racially charged domestic drama, or devil puppets?

But I have to admit, the list I’m more excited for is the playwrights list. Because while I can kind of predict now what the Top 10 plays will be, every year there are a couple of people on the Top 20 list who make me wonder: Who is this? And how do I find out more about them? Anything that can surprise an editor is a wonderful thing.

HOW DID WE DO IT? This year, we received 387 season announcements, which totaled 2,280 entries. From those raw numbers, we crunched them to tally the Top 10 Most-Produced Plays and the Top 20 Most-Produced Playwrights of the 2018-19 season. All seasons are self-reported by TCG member theatres (which number 531 at press time). To tally only full productions, we sifted out readings, workshops, and shows with less than a week onstage. And as usual we exclude A Christmas Carol and plays by Shakespeare, to make more room on our list for everyone and everything else.

Below, we present the most-produced playwrights of the upcoming season.

TOP 20 MOST-PRODUCED PLAYWRIGHTS OF 2018-19

1. Lucas Hnath: 33
2. Lauren Gunderson: 29
   (including 14 co-writing credits)
3. Dominique Morisseau: 26
   (including 1 co-writing credit)
4. Lynn Nottage: 20
   (including 1 co-writing credit)
5. Karen Zacarías: 18
   (including 3 co-writing credits)
6. Kate Hamill:18
7. Paula Vogel: 18
8. Lisa Kron: 17
   (including 13 co-writing credits)
9. Simon Stephens: 17
10. August Wilson: 16
    (including 2 co-writing credits)
11. Sarah DeLappe:  13
12. Ken Ludwig:  12
13. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins:  11
14. Jen Silverman:  11 
15. Christina Ham:  10
16. Enda Walsh:  10
    (including 9 co-writing credits)
17. Tennessee Williams:  10
    (including 1 co-writing credit)
18. Bess Wohl:  9
19. Duncan Macmillan:  9
20. Sam Shepard:  9

Odds and Ends:

• Shakespeare has 96 productions this season, remaining the U.S.’s true most-produced playwright. The Bard’s most popular plays this season are A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It, with 9 productions each.
• Stephen Sondheim, briefly dethroned last season by Alan Menken, returns this year as the most-produced musical theatre songsmith in the U.S., with 16 composing credits and 5 lyric-writing credits.
• Lauren Gunderson may be No. 2 this season, even though she has two more productions than last year, when she was the most-produced playwright in North America. So it’s safe to say American theatres are still gaga for Gunderson.
• Hnath was on the top 20 list last year at #15. Other returnees from last year’s Top 20 list are: Lauren Gunderson, Dominique Morisseau, Simon Stephens, Kate Hamill, Lisa Kron, August Wilson, Ken Ludwig, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Tennessee Williams. The American theatre knows what it likes.
• This year’s 11 most-produced plays include work by 9 female playwrights (and 2 female composers) opposite 3 male playwrights, a historic margin for this list, while the 20 most-produced playwrights comprises 11 women and 9 men. What’s more, there are 6 playwrights of color on the playwrights list, the most diverse it’s ever been.

Below, watch the editors of American Theatre interview Lucas Hnath and Karen Zacarias.