Famous Dramatists

Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 1564, William Shakespeare is universally regarded as one of the greatest playwrights in the history of literature. He was the third of eight children to John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. Although records of his early education are sparse, it is believed he attended the King's New School in Stratford, known for its classical curriculum. Shakespeare's literary career began around 1585, when he started writing plays and sonnets. His work was divided into three periods: the f

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. One of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that "the negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue".Growing up in a series of Midwestern towns, Hughes became a prolific writer at an early age. He gradua

Acknowledged as a leading figure in postwar American theater, playwright Arthur Miller had long been acclaimed as a writer who mixed naturalistic drama with timeless moral and political issues, with much of his work centered on the ethical responsibility of the individual in conflict with his community. His landmark play, "Death of a Salesman" (1949), won both a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize, while building a reputation as one of the greatest plays written in the 20th century. Four years later, he wrote "The Crucible" (1953), a thinly-guised examination of McCarthyism and the Red Scare tha

Arguably one of the most prolific and influential playwrights of the latter-20th century, David Mamet amassed a body of work that became famous for his spare, gritty and often profane language which also possessed such a unique cadence that his dialogue was dubbed "Mamet speak." Noted for his strong male characters and their macho posturing, Mamet's knack for creating low-key yet highly charged verbal confrontations in a male-dominated world consistently made his work fodder for discussion and deconstruction. Indelibly tied to the Chicago theater scene, Mamet gained attention with "American Bu

Sam Shepard, born Samuel Shepard Rogers III on November 5, 1943, was an acclaimed American playwright and actor. He lived in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. His career covered over fifty years, impacting American theater with many works. Shepard explored family and personal identity in his plays, often setting them in the American West. He earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child. Other notable plays include True West.

After bursting onto the London theater scene in the late 1960s, Tom Stoppard's absurdist masterpiece "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," Stoppard established himself as a linguistic gymnast with farces like "Travesties" (1974) prior to addressing more serious concerns in such plays as "Night and Day' (1978). The playwright soon made a name for himself adapting literary works to film with projects like novelist Graham Greene's "The Human Factor" (1979). Eventually moving on to original script work, Stoppard collaborated on Terry Gilliam's cult classic "Brazil" (1985) and even provided uncr

Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours. He is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox (c. 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."Jonson was a classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the

Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.After years of obscurity, at age 33 he became suddenly famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into U.S. drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The drama Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.O'Neill's plays were a

August Wilson (April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Each work in the series is set in a different decade, and depicts comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience in the 20th century

Samuel Barclay Beckett (April 13, 1906 – December 22, 1989) was an Irish novelist, playwright, poet, theatre director, and literary translator. He spent most of his adult life in Paris, writing in both English and French. Beckett’s work presents a bleak, tragicomic view of human existence, often including black comedy and gallows humor. His style became more minimalist later in his career. He is considered one of the final modernist writers and a key figure in Martin Esslin's "Theatre of the Absurd." Beckett received the 1969 Nobel Prize.

Athol Fugard wrote "Tsotsi" and "Boesman and Lena." He won a Tony Award in 2011.

Jane Anderson (born c. 1954 in California) is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director. She wrote and directed the feature film *The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio* (2005). She also wrote the Nicolas Cage film *It Could Happen to You* (1994). She won an Emmy Award for writing the screenplay for the miniseries *Olive Kitteridge* (2014).

Agatha Christie was one of the best-selling authors. She was an English writer and a Dame of the Order of the British Empire. She wrote murder mysteries and other crime fiction in novels, short stories, and plays. Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay. She married Archibald Christie, though they later divorced. She published her first novel in 1920. Filmed adaptations of her work surfaced quickly due to her popularity.

John Patrick Shanley was celebrated as an off-Broadway playwright for his intense dialogue and portrayal of dysfunctional young New Yorkers seeking identity and love. His romantic comedy storytelling reached the big screen with the hit movie *Moonstruck* (1987), earning him an Academy Award for his script. Shanley worked in Hollywood, writing and directing *Joe vs. the Volcano* (1990). He was hired to adapt scripts like *Congo* (1993) and *Alive* (1995).

Christopher Ferdinand Durang was an American playwright. He was born January 2, 1949. Durang writes outrageous and absurd comedy. His work became popular in the 1980s and gained attention again in the late 1990s. His play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2013. Nicholas Martin directed the production. Sigourney Weaver, David Hyde Pierce, Kristine Nielsen, Billy Magnussen, Shalita Grant, and Genevieve Angelson appeared in the show. Durang co-directs the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

Sarah Ruhl (born January 24, 1974) is an American playwright, professor, and essayist. Her popular plays include *Eurydice* (2003), *The Clean House* (2004), and *In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)* (2009). She received a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for her work in mid-career. Two of her plays were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and she received a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Play. In 2015, she published the collection *100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write*.

Harold Pinter was born in London in 1930. He grew up from humble beginnings, being the son of a Jewish dressmaker. He became one of the most influential playwrights of the late 20th century. His early exposure to the arts, including acting training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, shaped his path. Pinter’s works, often called "comedies of menace," use economical dialogue and a unique style.

Jean Genet was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. He was born on December 19, 1910, and died on April 15, 1986. Early in life, he lived as a vagabond and petty criminal. Genet began writing later. His major works include the novels The Thief's Journal and Our Lady of the Flowers. He also wrote the plays The Balcony, The Maids and The Screens.

Amiri Baraka, born Everett LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey on October 7, 1934, was an activist and writer of poetry, drama, and essays. He studied at Rutgers University, Howard University, Columbia University, and New School for Social Research. Although he did not earn a degree, his studies influenced his beliefs. Baraka worked in the Civil Rights movement and wrote essays and plays about race relations, such as *The Polar*.

Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and author. He wrote over 30 plays and nearly that number of movie screenplays, mostly adaptations. Simon received more combined Oscar and Tony nominations than any other writer. He grew up in New York City during the Great Depression, which affected his parents' marriage and gave him an unstable childhood. He often found refuge in movie theaters, enjoying early comedians like Charlie Chaplin.

Henrik Johan Ibsen (Norwegian: [ˈhɛnrɪk ˈɪpsn̩]; March 20, 1828 – May 23, 1906) was a playwright and theatre director. He is one of the founders of modernism in theatre and often called "the father of realism." Ibsen remains one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, When We Dead Awaken, and The Master Builder. He was the most frequently performed dramatist globally after Shakespeare. By the early 20th century, A Doll's House had become a major work.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. He became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s after writing in various forms throughout the 1880s. Wilde is best remembered for his epigrams, plays, and his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. He also faced criminal conviction for "gross indecency," imprisonment, and early death at age 46. Wilde's parents were successful Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. Their son learned French and German early in life. At university, Wilde read Greats.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: Антон Павлович Чехов, tr. Antón Pávlovič Čéhov; 1860–1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer. He is considered one of the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career produced four classics. Writers and critics hold his best short stories in high esteem. Chekhov, along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, is often called one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical docto.

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writings were music and literary criticism, he wrote many articulate pieces of journalism. His main talent lay in drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Shaw was also a novelist and essayist. Nearly all his writing addresses social problems with comedy, which makes the themes more palatable.

Victor Hugo was a writer known for works such as "Les Misérables," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," and "Les Miserables."

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (French: [ʒɑ̃ kɔkto]; July 5, 1889 – October 11, 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist, and critic. Cocteau is famous for novels like Le Grand Écart (1923), Le Livre Blanc (1928), and Les Enfants Terribles (1929). He also wrote stage plays such as La Voix Humaine (1930), La Machine Infernale (1934), Les Parents terribles (1938), La Machine à écrire (1941), and L'Aigle à deux têtes (1946). His films include The Blood of a Poet (1930), Les Parents Terribles (1948), and his own work, Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Orpheus (1949).

Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (baptized February 26, 1564 – May 30, 1593), was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe was the foremost Elizabethan tragedian. He greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was born in the same year. Shakespeare became the pre-eminent Elizabethan playwright after Marlowe's early death. Marlowe’s plays use blank verse and feature overreaching protagonists. Some scholars suggest a warrant for Marlowe's arrest was issued on May 18, 1593.

Peter Ustinov was an extraordinary entertainment personality. Born on April 16, 1921, in London, England, his career lasted six decades. It covered acting, playwriting, directing, and journalism. Ustinov studied at the Westminster School before starting his acting career. He excelled in many art forms. His first play, House of Regrets, debuted when he was just 19 years old, showing prodigious talent from the start.

Edward Franklin Albee III (AWL-bee; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright. He wrote works like The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), and A Delicate Balance (1966). Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and two other works won the Tony Award for Best Play. His plays examine the modern condition. His early work shows a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd, influenced by European playwrights like Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ion.

Wallace Henry Thurman (August 16, 1902 - December 22, 1934) was an American novelist active during the Harlem Renaissance. He also wrote essays and worked as an editor. He published short-lived newspapers and literary journals. He is best known for his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life (1929). This novel explores discrimination within the black community based on skin color, where lighter skin receives more value.

Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay (French: [al.fʁɛd də my.sɛ]; December 11, 1810 – May 2, 1857) was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist. Besides his poetry, he wrote the autobiographical novel La Confession d'un enfant du siècle (The Confession of a Child of the Century).

Ethan Coen directed, co-wrote, and shared a brother with Joel. He made stylish, irreverent movies that charmed critics while thrilling a small but devoted fan base. The Coen Brothers showed a deep interest in film genres like screwball comedy and film noir. Despite preferring to work outside the system, they earned respect from Hollywood. These self-conscious movies included humorous camera movements, rich settings, and powerful performers.

François Charles Mauriac was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist. He was a member of the Académie française starting in 1933 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1952. He received the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur in 1958. He was Catholic throughout his life.

Skolimowski was an inventive and original filmmaker. He is one of the few directors from the Eastern Bloc to gain wide recognition in the West. He studied anthropology, history, and literature at the University of Warsaw. Skolimowski also published short stories, two poetry volumes, and practiced jazz music.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. His plays reflected the experiences of World War II. His work included avant-garde dramas, philosophical crime novels, and macabre satire. Dürrenmatt was part of the Gruppe Olten, a group of left-wing Swiss writers.

Yecha Gunja Mahendran (born January 9, 1950) is an Indian dramatist, actor, singer, playwright, and comedian from Tamil Nadu. He acted in many plays and films. His father was Y. G. Parthasarathy, who pioneered modern Tamil drama. He is also the cousin of actress Vyjayanthimala and the co-brother of Rajinikanth and Mohanlal.

Edgar Lee Masters (August 23, 1868 – March 5, 1950) was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. He wrote *Spoon River Anthology*, *The New Star Chamber*, and many other works. Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one poetry books, six novels, and six biographies.

Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. His work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce. He is best known for his 1944 play *Antigone*, an adaptation of Sophocles' classical drama seen as an attack on the Vichy government. Much of his writing deals with moral compromise.

Júlio Dantas (1876 in Lagos – 1962 in Lisboa) was a Portuguese doctor, poet, journalist, politician, diplomat, and dramatist.

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet, and illustrator. He worked with composer Arthur Sullivan on fourteen comic operas. These include *H.M.S. Pinafore*, *The Pirates of Penzance*, and *The Mikado*. The repertory company featuring Gilbert, Sullivan, and Richard D'Oyly Carte performed these works for over a century.

Prosper Mérimée (French: meʁime; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was an important French writer in the Romantic school. He pioneered the novella form. He was also a historian and archaeologist. He is best known for his novella *Carmen*, which inspired Bizet's opera.

Jiří Voskovec (born Jiří Wachsmann; June 19, 1905 – July 1, 1981) was a Czech actor, writer, dramatist, and director. He became an American citizen in 1955. He worked with actor and playwright Jan Werich. In the US, he is known for his role as the 11th juror in the 1957 film *12 Angry Men*.

Sir Arthur Wing Pinero (24 May 1855 – 23 November 1934) was an English playwright and actor. Pinero became a professional actor at age 19. He gained experience in British provincial theatres acting as a supporting player. From 1876 to 1881, he worked with Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre in London. After writing his first play in 1877, Pinero became a full-time playwright after writing fifteen more successful works.

David Mercer (27 June 1928 – 8 August 1980) was an English dramatist.

The actor and playwright was Welsh-born and versatile. He often played put-upon working-class heroes and loyal pals in films. Among the Williams plays adapted to film were "Night Must Fall" and "The Corn Is Green." He started acting in films during the early 1930s and appeared in "The Walking Stick" in the 1970s.

Jean Richepin was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist. She was born on 4 February 1849 and died on 12 December 1926.

Friedrich Carl Georg Kaiser, known as Georg Kaiser, was a German dramatist. He lived from 25 November 1878 to 4 June 1945.

Brian Patrick Friel (January 9, 1929 – October 2, 2015) was an Irish dramatist, short story writer, and founder of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered one of the greatest living English-language dramatists. People compare him to "Irish Chekhov" and describe him as "the universally accented voice of Ireland." His plays are compared favorably to those by Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter, and Tennessee Williams. Friel published 24 plays during his career.

Bruno Frank (Stuttgart, June 13, 1887 - Beverly Hills, June 20, 1945) was a German author, poet, dramatist, and humanist. Frank studied law and philosophy in Munich. He worked as a dramatist and novelist until the Reichstag fire in 1933. The government persecuted him because of his Jewish heritage. He left Nazi Germany with his wife, Liesl, daughter of Fritzi Massary and Count Karl Coudenhove. They lived in Austria and England for four years before moving to the United States in 1937, where he reunited with Heinrich Mann and Thomas Mann.