11 Plays That Promote Your Cause

What's the best way to promote a cause? If you're all about drama club, get your fellow actors together to perform a free play for the community. Check out our 11 great modern works that promote an important issue.

1. Children of a Lesser God by Mark Medoff: Deaf student Sarah and her teacher James meet, fall in love, and struggle with understanding a loved one with different abilities. Sarah’s struggle is particularly touching as she lashes out against conformity and eventually opens up about her pain.
2. Black Watch by Gregory Burke: The playwright interviewed members of the British Army’s famous regimen. Hear the stories of men that the UK sent to help in Iraq. They share their thoughts and experiences about what it is to be part of the troops, to fight a war on terror, and to finally come home.
3. The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer: Three different terminally-ill patients sort out their family relationships while struggling with the physical burdens of cancer and the mental acceptance of leaving loved ones behind.
4. The History Boys by Alan Bennett: A unique English teacher encourages six distracted high school senior boys to question how things are taught in school and why we have the education system at all.
5. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry: the first play by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, this show follows a black family that fights over how to use inheritance money to provide for a better life in 1950s America. In addition to outward discrimination, the story also follows historic civil rights struggles in areas of poverty, housing rights, and college admissions.
6. Proof by David Auburn: Catherine is like her deceased father – a mathematical genius and struggling with mental illness. As people around Catherine place doubt and criticism on her behavior, Catherine must overcome a mental health struggle to prove something that could define her life’s work.
7. Juvie by Jerome McDonough: set in a juvenile detention center, this short play introduces characters in monologue formats that issues like drugs, violence, and poverty. The best part – limited to no set.
8. The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman: Members of a theater company went to Laramie, Wyoming to interview the public’s reaction to the brutal murder of gay 21-year-old Matthew Shepard that took place in their town. These are their (gay rights) stories.
9. Angels in America by Tony Kurshner: Follow the early days of the AIDS epidemic in New York City. Friends and relationships are tested and torn apart as the debilitating disease affects people from all walks of life.
10. Bridge and Tunnel by Sarah Jones: This series of monologues exposes what it’s like to be an immigrant in America as people of different backgrounds celebrate their diversity and vent about the struggles of discrimination. 
11. Your own play by You: Write and perform your own work. It can be about any cause.

Tell us about your project. GO