Yes, here in New York we expect the English to give us world-class Shakespeare. But could you keep your hands off our new American plays? I mean the ones we forgot to write? Or produce? Or revive? In early April, previews start for the Broadway run of Enron, writer Lucy Prebble and director Rupert Goold's apparently brilliant anatomy of our nation's biggest corporate scandal. But the excitement over this transfer from the West End is mitigated by shame that no one here had thought of it first.

Like the astonishing production of Black Watch from the National Theatre of Scotland a few seasons back, Enron serves to remind us that American artistic directors are shockingly unimaginative. They ought to dangle commission money in front of hungry playwrights in return for a smart, timely drama. Instead, they programme whatever inoffensive living-room pap they think subscribers want to see.

But it gets worse: English writers are taking our off-Broadway slots, too. Lucinda Coxon's Happy Now? just extended at Primary Stages. Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Pride is earning kudos for MCC Theatre. And, in late April, your wunderkind Polly Stenham makes her US debut when That Face opens at Manhattan Theatre Club. Although Andrew Bovell is Australian, not English, his family drama When the Rain Stops Falling is in previews at Lincoln Centre Theatre. Has there been a drought of new American drama?

No one wants to sound like a rabid protectionist, and it's vital to see what the rest of the theatre world is doing, but, as the survey Outrageous Fortune documents, it's hard out there for American playwrights; they can barely eke out a living, much less expect high-profile productions.

To be fair, the production of new plays swings both ways, and your English scribes have cause to complain for lost gigs. London theatres often showcase American writers before we do. At the National Theatre next autumn, JT Rogers will have a world premiere, and Katori Hall's The Mountaintop is slated for Broadway after a run at London's Theatre 503. Londoners know about hot new American playwrights before we do. Or they honour our great and living ones, as the Royal Court did last year with its unofficial Wallace Shawn festival.

Perhaps this season of Brits invading off Broadway is a fluke, and a year from now our non-profit companies will go back to American plays of the dysfunctional-family and identity-politics variety. Then we'll all sigh and say that English drama is sharper and more relevant, and hope we can afford to fly to London to see what's on at the National or the Royal Court. And after that, we'll trudge over to the Park Avenue Armory and see Shakespeare "done right" – thanks to generous American donors.