Throughout the history of theater, many plays have been written with a focus on courts and legal issues; however, relatively little research has been conducted on courtroom drama. Therefore, examining courtroom drama as a popular theatrical genre is the main focus of this study. This research, while providing a better understanding of the performative potentials of the courtroom and courtroom drama, can also serve as a guide for creating new works in this field. In this direction, Goffman's drama theory, in which he considers everyday life as a stage, became a spark for us to consider the court in its social form as a drama (performance). Since we wanted to evaluate the dramatic aspects of the court, we turned to Richard Schechner's performance theory, which is a comprehensive book on analytical studies related to performance. This article demonstrates the extent to which the courtroom, as a social phenomenon, aligns with the principles of Aristotle’s dramaturgy. It also examines, in light of the concept of the primacy of drama, the intertwined roots of the formation of the courtroom and drama, and to what extent courts, with their dramatic potential, can serve as a source of inspiration for creating theatrical works. Furthermore, when they appear in plays (resulting in courtroom dramas), how do they correspond to the performance criteria discussed by Schechner and Goffman? For this purpose, we have chosen two court dramas, “In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer” and “The Portrait of a Woman,” because both were considered controversial and important trials in their time in terms of social impact, and both faced many ethical challenges.