Gay Playwright, Gay-Inclusive Comedy Are Most Popular This Season

Out playwright Christopher Durang's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike tops Theatre Communications Group's list of the 10 most-produced plays in the U.S. for the 2014-15 season at a total of 27 productions.

The list, compiled from season announcements released by TCG's participating member theatres, is printed annually in American Theatre magazine, a TCG publication. This year's results were tallied from 404 theaters and 1,876 productions scheduled from October 1 to September 30, 2015.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike relocates Chekhovian themes of discontent and longing to a Pennsylvania farmhouse with three squabbling siblings, including Vanya, a gay aspiring playwright understandably attracted to his sister's exhibitionist boy toy.

The comedy won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2013. The Advocate named its off-Broadway engagement among the top LGBT-inclusive theater of 2012, calling it "winsomely quirky." Both productions starred Billy Magnussen, Kristine Nielsen, David Hyde Pierce, and Sigourney Weaver.

Durang also tops TCG's list of this season's most-produced playwrights, excluding William Shakespeare, which includes gay playwrights Tarell Alvin McCraney, Jon Robin Baitz, Matthew Lopez, Samuel D. Hunter, and Tennessee Williams.

TCG also announced that gay Tony winner Stephen Sondheim is this season's most-produced composer with 20 productions, including Into the Woods, which is enjoying a resurgence in popularity because of the upcoming Disney film adaptation.

For a full list visit AmericanTheatre.org.