Why women are taking over the theatre world And if we look beyond the shows that have displayed the commercial clout to achieve a West End transfer to those which may not have quite achieved that but exerted a strong cultural force nevertheless - generating favourable reviews, capacity audiences and great word-of-mouth - the number of names becomes staggering. Laura Wade Those who should be mentioned include: Vivienne Franzmann, a teacher whose gripping foray into an urban school, Mogadishu, premiered in Manchester; Anya Reiss, who had only just sat her A-levels at the time of her Royal Court debut Spur of the Moment; and Penelope Skinner, who delivered one of the best comedies of 2011 with The Village Bike. And then - oh, where to stop? - there's Nina Raine, Lolita Chakrabarti, Bola Agbaje, Debbie Tucker Green, Ella Hickson, Kate Tempest, EV Crowe, Dawn King. Coming up in the near future Jessica Swale has penned Blue Stocking for Shakespeare's Globe, about the first female students at Cambridge, Moira Buffini will assess the relationship between Margaret Thatcher and the Queen in Handbagged at the Tricycle, and at the Royal Court in January Abi Morgan's The Mistress Contract, based on the anonymous detailing of a 30-year "deal" between a man and woman living on America's West Coast, in which the latter granted "all sexual acts as requested" in return for financial favours. Lucy Prebble It's not as if there haven't been influential waves of women's work in the past. Caryl Churchill remains a world-class force to be reckoned with, while the high-impact oeuvre that Sarah Kane left at her death in 1999 continues to be performed widely. The 1970s saw a generational outpouring of responses to women's liberation and feminism. Next year sees the 50th anniversary of Joan Littlewood's Oh What a Lovely War. Going further back, academic research suggests that the inter-war period was a relatively golden age for female playwrights: 18.4 per cent of plays on the London stage in 1923 were written by, or involved the co-authorship, of women, rising to 22 per cent by 1945. Yet some of the most respected figures in British theatre believe these are momentous times. In 2010 Sir David Hare suggested: "We have at last reached a tipping point. Women's writing for the theatre is stronger and more eloquent than it has ever been. And there's no doubt in the minds of two of the most successful producers in British theatre, Sonia Friedman - who brought That Face to the West End and is now importing Chimerica to the Harold Pinter Theatre - and Nica Burns, who co-runs Nimax, that we should be celebrating. "I think it's a golden age for playwrights many of whom happen to be female," Friedman says. I wish we weren't defined by our gender but I do think it's an extraordinary time. There have certainly been fewer female playwrights [in the past]. There has to be that line where you go 'This is the moment" and I think this possibly is it." Polly Stenham With women looking at a whole raft of subjects that have little direct bearing on what have traditionally been thought of as "women's issues," and might even have been regarded as masculine territory, attempts to define what makes a play penned by a woman "distinctively female" are increasingly hard to sustain. "I was drawn to Chimerica not because it was written by a wonderful young woman," Friedman continues, "but because I found it mind-blowing and mind-expanding. It made me think about the world in a different way. What we're seeing are big plays dealing with our time but they're not worthy. You don't feel lectured. That's very exciting. Burns attributes the boom to the nurturing and encouragement afforded by the subsidised sector - "all those years of concentrated, highly developed writers" schemes are really paying off." For her, it's the risk-taking nature of this body of work, and the way it refuses to be constrained by the limits of personal experience, that's exhilarating. "I love the sheer bravado of it," she says. They're not writing just about the female condition but about very large issues. It's brave for Lucy Prebble to ask what happened to Lehman Brothers and decide to put the 'show" back into business. Lucy Kirkwood hasn't been to China, she used research and imagination. And this is just the beginning, Burns believes. "I don't think this is a passing trend," she says. We have a talented generation who will inspire others and the next generation will think it's normal. I honestly believe that in 10 years" time, no one will be surprised there are so many female playwrights." A case, then, of saluting an incredible collective achievement while saying: and now let's move on... Chimerica runs at the Harold Pinter Theatre from Aug 6 to Oct 19. Tickets: 0844 871 7622. chimerica.co.uk