100 Plays in 365 Days

Time flies when you no longer have study and assignments sitting on your shoulders.

Ten years ago I completed a distance education degree with the University of New England. I’m 60 years old now, so even then I was what would kindly be referred to as a “mature student.” People who know me would struggle seeing the word mature linked to me in any way, but there you are.

I did three majors in that course… Politics, Media and Writing. The latter of those contained my favourite units of the course, including Scriptwriting for Theatre. That course included a small amount of content on some of the great playwrights… but only a small amount and not with a great deal of depth.

I always meant to get into a bit of personal study, reading plays I hadn’t encountered and learning about their authors. Obviously I was only a little interested as I’ve done nothing about it. But now… as I’ve moved into yet another kindly intended aged category – a senior – I have some particularly nerdy bucket list items I’d like to tick off and on of them is to become more knowledgeable about plays… partly out of a burning interest in learning, and partly because I want to become a better writer.

So… what to do. Maybe there’s a book that would walk me through =hat I wanted. Nope… well not one that addressed exactly what I’m after. Well… maybe there’s a course? Again, not one that seems to curate all of the playwrights I wanted to read. And it’s not like I wanted to shell out the money if I could afford it. With Vox Populi in production, it’s going to be a tight year financially. And a busy one. So why am I trying to find another way to chew up my time?

Because I’m not right in the head.

So here is my self-challenge. 100 plays in 365 days. That’s two a week. Quite a busy schedule, especially in view of my Vox Pop commitments and the other works I’m trying to write. But traditionally, I DO do better when I set myself a measurable challenge. AND, plays are typically quickish to read. AND… I’m giving myself the flexibility of consuming these plays in ANY way they are available. Written. Audiobook. Video.

Building the list was fun. I included all of the playwrights names I’ve heard of as the greats. I checked out lists of “must read plays” for additional suggestions, then researched additional plays representing Aussie, queer, indigenous and feminist content. Where possible, I’ve included 4-5 plays from individual playwrights to get a bit of a vibe on each (learning about the playwrights, not just the plays) and left out Shakespeare, the greek plays (those would fill up a whole course) and Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde just because I’ve read a bunch of theirs before and wasn’t enticed.

If anyone wants to join me on the nerd-quest, I’ll welcome them. We can swap notes after each play etc. But it’s fine by me if no-one wants to. 

I’ll try to do at least a brief blog on each (which I already know I’ll start with good intentions but not continue) but so that I don’t fill this website up at with stuff no-one is interested in (even less interested in that the rest of the stuff here), I’ve set up a freebie Blog at BlogSpot . But IF I succeed I’ll have a much better repertoire of the great plays, and hopefully will learn a thing or two about playwrighting.