5 Plays That Inspire Social Change

Theater has long mirrored the conflicts, struggles, and triumphs of the human experience, so it’s no wonder that it has played a prominent role in advancing social change. These are our picks for some of the most compelling.

1. Twelve Angry Men
The themes of Twelve Angry Men endure to this day despite having first been staged nearly 70 years ago. Written by Reginald Rose, the play is a story about a murder that’s actually not about the murder. Twelve jurors, knowing that a unanimous guilty verdict results in a death sentence, deliberate about a young man accused of killing his father. The play provides theatergoers with an experience that reflects their own biases as it exposes the issues of toxic masculinity, racial prejudice, and bigotry that is perpetuated when we find ourselves talking in an echo chamber. The play pushes us to see these issues reflected in our own behavior, and encourages us to take more empathetic and open-minded views of others.

2. An Enemy of the People
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen was a master of reflecting on the social problems of his day. He knew that theater could be a universal catalyst for change by reflecting the story behind society’s norms, resistance, political beliefs, and heartaches. Ibsen’s plays create a pathway for audiences to tap into the empathy and possibilities that are within each of us. An Enemy of the People is about the tension between economic interests and environmental concerns in a small town where public health takes a back seat to integrity, expediency, and power. Sam Gold and Amy Herzog’s recent Broadway adaptation, starring Jeremy Strong, reminds audience members of the travesty of polluted water in Flint, Michigan, for example. Ibsen’s 1882 play also finds relevance as society continues to sputter along on its half-hearted, money-over-people quest to address climate change.

3. The Laramie Project
Theater can make you feel less alone in your own struggles, and more hopeful about the future. And if there was any time that society needed to feel hopeful about the future, it was in the aftermath of the brutal 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student. The Laramie Project was written in 2000 by Moisés Kaufman and collaborators at the Tectonic Theater Project. The three-act play is a compilation of reactions to the tragic murder and asks audiences to connect with people they presume to have nothing in common with in the way that only theater knows how.

4. Sweat
Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Sweat premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015 and on Broadway in 2017. The story centers around factory workers in Reading, Pennsylvania, who face the stress of union-busting, cuts in benefits, and jobs going overseas. Even theatergoers who are not blue-collar workers get glimpses of their own experience in each character – struggling to make ends meet, worrying about being laid off, or feeling marginalized by those in power. Seeing your story reflected in another’s is often healing and at the crux of how the stage has long been a vibrant platform for bringing together cross-sections of society for a shared moment of connection.

5. A Raisin in the Sun
Taking place in south Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun is about the struggles of a Black family facing racism, integration, and housing discrimination. Written by Lorraine Hansberry, the play debuted on Broadway in 1959 and starred the late Sidney Poitier. Real social change frequently requires a personal connection to the issue, which can be difficult to achieve without direct experience. Theater helps bridge this gap by immersing audiences in vivid experiences and perspectives different from their own. In this play, audiences have a chance to get close to someone who works full-time, but barely gets by, and also gets to know someone who denies his heritage in order to get ahead. Theater spurs and supports social change because viewers get close to people from diverse backgrounds. According to Sidney Poitier, Hansberry “put together a group of characters that were unbelievably real. She was reaching into the essence of who we were and where we came from.”