List of Jewish American playwrights

This is a list of famous Jewish American playwrights. For other famous Jewish Americans, see List of Jewish Americans.
*Lynn AhrensJewish-Composed Musicals
*Sholom Aleichem "Recognized as the best Jewish writer who ever lived in Russia and wrote in Yiddish..."
*Woody Allen (1935–) Academy Award-winning film director, writer, actor, and comedian
*George AxelrodNotable Jewish deaths in 2003
*Jeff Baron
*S. N. Behrman "He was the third child of Joseph and Zelda Behrman, Jewish immigrants living on Worcester's East Side."
*David Belasco "It was staged by the young David Belasco, a Sephardic Jew..."
*Saul Bellow "American author, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, one of the major representatives of Jewish-American writers..."
*Leo Birinski
*Mel Brooks "as the 77-year-old Brooklyn-born Jewish comedian put it unrepentantly..."
*Paddy ChayefskyJewishAmThea
*Comden and Green|Betty Comden & Adolph Green
*Norman Corwin "Corwin, who is Jewish, started his journalism career sans a high school..."
*Howard DietzHebrew Melodies
*Edward Einhorn Edward Einhorn - Novelist, Playwright, Director
*Eve Ensler "The celebrated actress-playwright, born to a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, sees herself as “a Jewish being. My mother looked like Doris Day. I was a dead ringer for Anne Frank. I came out Jewish.”"
*Harvey Fierstein "Harvey Fierstein, nice Jewish boy from Bensonhurst, dressed in holiday finery..."
*Edna FerberEdna Ferber
*Herb Gardner
*Larry Gelbart "Besides writing the Oscar-nominated screenplay "Oh, God!" the Jewish comedy screenwriter is famous..."
* Les Golden comedy/murder mysteriesZorn, Eric. (1995) “This candidate is a "Cut the Taxes" above the rest,” Chicago Tribune (Metrowest), October 3, p. 1http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-10-03/news/9510030038_1_wallace-gator-bradley-candidates-taxes
*Josh Greenfeld "He, Josh Greenfeld, was a Jewish writer from Greenwich Village."
*Oscar Hammerstein II "When American Jewish songwriters Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote Oklahoma!, they were, Felstiner argues, doing what all children of immigrant parents do: desiring to possess the new land."
*Otto Harbach
*Yip Harburg 
*Moss Hart (on Hart and George S. Kaufman) "Both were tall, dark and Jewish, and both had private demons..."
*Ben Hecht "Ben Hecht was an American Jewish journalist, novelist, and playwright.
*Lillian Hellman "She is Jewish."
*Peretz HirshbeinNational Foundation for Jewish Culture
*Israel Horovitz 
*Sidney Howard "Sidney Howard was of course Jewish having emigrated to the United States from Germany twenty years before.
*George Jessel (actor)|George JesselThis article is unavailable - HighBeam Research
*George S. Kaufman
*Sidney Kingsley "second-generation American Jewish writers: Miller, Odets, Sidney Kingsley"
*Tony Kushner "The gay, Jewish socialist raised in Louisiana and educated at Columbia and NYU most enjoys addressing audiences that are receptive to ideas for change and progress."
*James Lapine "finest Jewish playwrights, including Elizabeth Swados, William Finn and James Lapine, Herb Gardner..."
*Arthur Laurents "...the creation of Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim: four gay Jewish men, all working at the very top of their craft." "Laurents also writes extensively on being gay, Jewish, left-wing..."
*H. LeivickMET's Past Productions: The Golem - Notes on the Play
*Alan Jay Lerner 
*Ira Levin "Dickens wasn’t Jewish, in case you were wondering. But Bette just did a remake of The Stepford Wives, based on the novel by Ira Levin, who is."
*Craig Lucas "Besides the mainstage premiere of a major new work by acclaimed Jewish playwright Craig Lucas..."
*David Mamet "David Mamet is a Jewish writer, though until recently few accounts of his life or work suggested as much..."
*Donald Margulies "he was Donald Margulies, the darling of regional theater, the state-sanctioned "Jewish American Playwright""
*Arthur Miller "Let's have a look. Miller, like myself, (and like Ed Siegel) is a Jewish-American, meaning, simply..."
*Becky Mode Time Magazine "Best Theater 2000" #4
*Itamar Moses
*Clifford Odets "...introduced the work of Jewish playwrights Aaron Hoffman, Clifford Odets, and Paddy Chayefsky to contemporary audiences..."
*Jonathan RandJonathanRand.com - The official website of playwright Jonathan Rand
*Carl Reiner "But consider the milieu the show's Jewish creator, Carl Reiner, was trying to portray: the heavily Jewish New York comedy scene out of which came Your Show..."
*Elmer Rice "Elmer Rice, nee Reizenstein, an American/Jewish writer of the ‘20s and ‘30s, did not necessarily focus on Jewish characters and issues..."
*Morrie Ryskind "George and Ira Gershwin team up with another Jewish team—George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind..."
*Rod Serling "Rod was Jewish and that doesn't necessarily mean that it should have meant more..."
*Irwin Shaw "Amis and I often talked about Jewish matters, such as novels by American Jews, like Irwin Shaw – that dates it."
*Wallace ShawnJUF : Tweens : Celebrities : Wallace Shawn
*Sidney SheldonJewish Literature Month - Palm Beach County Library System
*Martin Sherman""Being Jewish and being gay are the most important parts of me," he explains, "and they’re the DNA in my bones.""
*Neil Simon "Broadway Bound is the least known play of prolific Jewish playwright Neil Simon’s trio of comical semi-autobiographical dramas."
*Isaac Bashevis SingerIsaac Bashevis Singer
*Jill Soloway — playwright, television writerSoloway — "One aspect of herself that Soloway reveals in her book, due out in paperback next month (published by Free Press), is that she, a self-described "Jewess," feels a sisterly solidarity with Monica Lewinsky, as well as Chandra Levy"
*Aaron Sorkin (1961–) screenwriter, producer and playwrightSorkin — "...says the Jewish Sorkin..."
*Gertrude Stein
*Joseph Stein350th Play List
*Jeffrey SweetAll About Jewish Theatre - The Sins of the Father, Another Holocaust Play
*Alfred Uhry "I’ve probably come late to the party accepting, and being proud of, the fact that I’m Jewish. But I’m here. Am I an observant Jew? No. Maybe I’ll get there."
*Wendy Wasserstein (1950–2006) playwright and an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University, also the recipient of the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for DramaWasserstein — "“My father loved me dearly, but I’m not a Jewish American Princess,” playwright Wendy Wasserstein said. “I’m a Jewish mother, but I’m not Molly Goldberg.”"
*Jerome WeidmanContemporary Jewish-American Novelists — www.greenwood.com
*Franz Werfel "Werfel was a German-speaking Jew and never forgot his Jewish background..."
*Norman Wexler screenwriter of "Saturday Night Fever","Joe", "Serrpic", "Mandingo"
*Turn left at Gilgamesh|Rory Winston Playwright, poet, comedy writer, reviewer
== See also ==
*List of Jewish American authors
*List of Jewish American poets
*Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
*Before Columbus Foundation
==Footnotes==
Playwrights
Jewish American
Jewish