Oleanna's author, David Mamet, is a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright, novelist, director, and screenwriter. Many of his works, including his play Glengarry Glen Ross and his film Wag the Dog, are concerned with the same intersections of truth and power that Oleanna is concerned with.
Other playwrights contemporary to David Mamet are Martin McDonagh, David Auburn, and Harold Pinter. Notable works from these authors include McDonagh's The Lonesome West, Auburn's Proof, and Pinter's Betrayal.