The Best Broadway Plays of the '90s

Buster McDermott
Updated June 23, 2023 924 votes 188 voters
Over 100 Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of The Best Broadway Plays of the '90s

What are the top Broadway plays of the 1990s? This list has been ranked by theater lovers to determine the best non-musical plays on Broadway running from 1990 to 1999, a decade of rising usage of and influence from cable television and the internet. As entertainment continued to evolve in America, what were the Broadway plays from the 1990s?

Though no longer the golden age of Broadway, the 90s saw a new generation of talent emerge on Broadway that attracted younger fans, mostly students who were offered discounted tickets at many Broadway theaters. Though 90s musicals still reigned supreme on the stage, with shows such as Rent and Aida, a number of non-musical Broadway plays opened in the 1990s.

Lettice and Lovage was a comedic play that opened at the start of the decade, and though it ran for fewer than 300 performances, the play was nominated for several Tonys and won two for acting. Written by Peter Shaffer (also the author of Equus and Amadeus), the show was adapted for an American audience instead of its original English audience.  

The Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Neil Simon, Lost in Yonkers, was another standout Broadway production when it opened in 1991 and ran for almost 800 performances. A coming-of-age story, Lost in Yonkers depicted a dysfunctional family through the eyes of a 15-year-old. The play won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1991, as well as several Tony acting accolades. 

What are the top non-musical Broadway shows from the 1990s? Cast your votes below to rank the best Broadway plays of the 90s.
Most divisive: Park Your Car in Harvard Yard
Ranked by
  • Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes
    1

    Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

    Tony Kushner
    73 votes
  • Freak
    2

    Freak

    John Leguizamo
    38 votes
  • Six Degrees of Separation
    3

    Six Degrees of Separation

    John Guare
    34 votes
    • Characters: Louisa ('Ouisa') Kittredge, Paul, Trent Conway, Elizabeth, Kitty
    Six Degrees of Separation is a play written by American playwright John Guare that premiered in 1990. The play was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play.The play explores the existential premise that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else in the world by a chain of no more than six acquaintances, thus, "six degrees of separation".
  • Conversations With My Father
    4

    Conversations With My Father

    Herb Gardner
    21 votes
  • Master Class
    5

    Master Class

    Terrence McNally , Vincenzo Bellini, Giuseppe Verdi
    35 votes
    Master Class is a 1995 play by American playwright Terrence McNally, presented as a fictional master class by opera singer Maria Callas near the end of her life, in the 1970s. As such, the play features incidental vocal music by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, and Vincenzo Bellini. The play opened on Broadway in 1995, with stars Zoe Caldwell and Audra McDonald winning Tony Awards.
  • Arcadia
    6

    Arcadia

    Tom Stoppard
    36 votes
    • Characters: Richard Noakes, Septimus Hodge, Captain Brice, Lady Croom, Valentine Coverly
    Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present, order and disorder, certainty and uncertainty. It has been praised by many critics as the finest play from one of the most significant contemporary playwrights in the English language. In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it one of the best science-related works ever written.