Playwrights Flashcards
Aeschylus
525-456 BCE Greek playwright - Seven Against Thebes (467 BCE); Oresteia trilogy (458 BCE); Prometheus Bound; The Persians - 1st to use multiple actors - Called the Father of Tragedy - One of big 3 tragedians (Sophocles, Euripides - earliest of the three) - Fought in the Battle of Marathon
Anton Chekov
1860-1904 Russian playwright y author - Ivanov (1887); The Seagull (1896); Uncle Vanya (1900); The Three Sisters (1901); The Cherry Orchard (1904) - Short stories: The Black Monk (1894); The Darling (1899); The Bishop (1902) - Considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history - Practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career
Aristophanes
446-386 BCE Greek playwright - The Clouds (423 BCE-mocking Socrates y intellectuals); The Frogs (405 BCE); Lysistrata (411 BCE-about women withholding sex to end the Peloponnesian War); The Wasps; The Birds - Known as the Father of Comedy
Arthur Miller
1915-2005 American playwright from NYC - All My Sons (1947); Death of a Salesman (1949); The Crucible (1953); A View from the Bridge (1955) - Pulitzer for Drama 1949 - Married to Marilyn Monroe 1956-61 - Father-in-law of Daniel Day-Lewis
August Strindberg
1849-1912 Swedish playwright y author - To Damascus (1898); Miss Julie; The Ghost Sonata; The Red Room (1879-novel); Inferno (1898-novel) - Spent significant time studying the occult
Bertolt Brecht
1898-1956 German playwright - The Threepenny Opera (1928); Life of Galileo (1943); The Good Person of Szechwan; Mother Courage - Marxist - Lived in USA during 1940s - Founded the Berliner Ensemble
Christopher Marlowe
1564-1593 English playwright- Dr. Faustus (1589); Tamburlaine (1587); The Jew of Malta; Hero and Leander; Edward the Second - Served as a spy for Elizabeth I against Catholics - Stabbed in a drunken fight
David Mamet
1947- American playwright y screenwriter - Plays: Glengarry Glen Ross (1984-Pulitzer); Speed-the-Plow (88) - Films: The Verdict (1982); Wag the Dog (97); Homicide (91); The Postman Always Rings Twice (81); The Untouchables (87); Ronin (98); Hannibal (01);
Edward Albee
1928- American playwright - Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962); The Zoo Story (1958); The Sandbox (1959) - Pulitzer (1967); Tony (1963, 2002) - His works are often considered as well-crafted, realistic examinations of the modern condition
Eugène Ionesco
1909-94 Romanian-French playwright - Known for avant-garde plays in the style of the Theatre of the Absurd - The Bald Soprano (1950); Rhinoceros (1959); Exit the King (1962)
Eugene (Gladstone) O’Neill
1888-1953 American playwright from NYC - Beyond the Horizon (1920-Pulitzer); Anna Christie (1922-Pulitzer); Strange Interlude (1928-Pulitzer); Mourning Becomes Electra (1931); Ah, Wilderness! (1933); The Iceman Cometh (1940); Long Day’s Journey into Night (1957-Pulitzer); A Moon for the Misbegotten (1957) - Daughter Oona married Charlie Chaplin at age 18 in 1943 - Nobel Prize in Literature 1936; Record 4 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama
Euripides
480-406 BCE Ancient Greek playwright - Medea (431 BCE); Cyclops; Electra; Hippolytus (428 BCE); The Trojan Women; Heracles; Bacchae (405 BCE) - One of the big 3 Greek tragedians (Sophocles, Aeschylus - Latest of the three) y more of his plays survive intact than the others - Ridiculed by Aristophanes along with Socrates, y exiled to Macedonia
George Bernard Shaw
1856-1950 Irish playwright - Man and Superman (1902); Pygmalion (1912); Saint Joan (1923); Arms and the Man (1894) - Nobel Prize Literature (1925) - Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay (1938-Pygmalion) - Held contentious views, incl. promoting eugenics y opposing religion
Harold Pinter
1930-2008 British playwright - The Birthday Party (1957); The Homecoming (1964-Tony award); Betrayal (1978) - Won Nobel Prize for Lit in 2005 - Acted in films y his own plays
Henrik Ibsen
1828-1906 Norwegian playwright - Father of realism y modernism - Brand; Peer Gynt (1867); The Master Builder; Ghosts (1881); A Doll’s House (1879); An Enemy of the People (1882); Hedda Gabler (1890) - Most frequently performed dramatist after Shakespeare
Jean Genet
1910-1986 French playwright y author - Plays: The Maids (1946); The Blacks; The Balcony; Deathwatch (1944) - Novels: The Thief’s Journal (1949); Querelle of Brest - Was a vagabond and thief in early life
John Osborne
1929-1994 English playwright - Look Back in Anger (1956); The Entertainer (1957); Inadmissible Evidence (1964) - Part of the Angry Young Men literary movement
John Webster
1580-1634 English playwright - The White Devil (1612); The Duchess of Malfi (1613); The Devil’s Law Case (1617) - Wrote macabre, disturbing dramas - Virtually nothing known about his life outside of his dramatic works
Lillian Hellman
1905-84 American playwright y screenwriter - The Little Foxes (1939); Watch on the Rhine (1941); The Autumn Garden (1951) - Romantic partner of Dashiell Hammett - Blacklisted after her appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee for communist activism
Lynn Nottage
1964- American playwright from NYC - Ruined (2009-Pulitzer); By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2011); Sweat (2017-Pulitzer) - First woman to win Pulitzer for Drama twice - Professor of theater at Columbia University
Menander
341-290 BCE Greek playwright - Dyskolos (317 BCE - aka The Grouch); Samia (315 BCE) - “New” comedy style - Almost all his work was lost and survives only in fragments, much of which was discovered in the 20th century - Only Dyskolos has survived almost entirety
Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)
1622-1673 French playwright- The Imaginary Invalid (1673); Dom Juan (1665); The Misanthrope; The School for Wives - Considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature
Neil Simon
1927- American playwright from NYC - Barefoot in the Park (1963); The Odd Couple (1965-Tony Award); Plaza Suite (1968); Chapter Two (1977); Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983); Biloxi Blues (1985-Tony Award); Lost in Yonkers (1991-Pulitzer, Tony) - The only living playwright to have a NYC theatre, the Neil Simon Theatre, named in his honor
Nikolai Gogol
1809-52 Russian-Ukrainian playwright y author - Plays: The Government Inspector (1832); Marriage (1842) - Short stories/novels: Diary of a Madman (1835); Dead Souls (1842); The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich (1835)
Noël (Peirce) Coward
1899-1973 English playwright, composer, director, actor, y singer - Known for his wit y flamboyance - Plays: Blithe Spirit (1941); Private Lives (1930); Design For Living (1932) - Songs: Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1931); London Pride; I Went to a Marvellous Party - Ran the British propaganda office during WWII, y produced the patriotic war film In Which We Serve (1942) - Wrote the operetta Bitter Sweet (1928) - Knighted in 1969
Oscar (Fingal O’Flahertie Wills) Wilde
1864-1900 Irish writer from Dublin - The Picture of Dorian Grey (1890-only novel); The Importance of Being Earnest (1895-play-Aka A Trivial Comedy for Serious People); The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898-poem); De Profundis (1905-letter written from jail); The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891-essay) - Sentenced to jail for homosexuality - Was very popular, but died in poverty in Paris
Peter Shaffer
1926- English playwright - Equus (1973-Tony for Best Play); Amadeus (1979); Black Comedy (1965); Five Finger Exercise - 1984 Oscar for Amadeus screenplay
Peter Weiss
1916-1982 German playwright y author - Known for his plays Marat/Sade (1963 - The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade); The Investigation (1965); and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance (1975) - Early works as a surrealist painter y experimental filmmaker
Sam Shepard
1943-2017 American playwright, actor, author, y director from Chicago - Buried Child (1979 - Pulitzer); Curse of the Starving Class (1978); True West (1980) - Played Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983), y nominated for Best Supporting Actor - Won 10 Off-Broadway Theater (Obie) Awards for writing y directing
Samuel Beckett
1906-1989 Irish playwright and author - Waiting for Godot (1954); Endgame; Watt (1953); Malone Dies (1951) - Lived in Paris, wrote in English and French - Nobel 1969 - Absurdist style
Seán O’Casey
1880-1964 Irish playwright - The Shadow of a Gunman (1923); Juno and the Paycock (1924); The Plough and the Stars (1926) - 1st Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes - Committed Socialist
Sophocles
497-407 BCE Ancient Greek playwright from Colonus (Athens) - Only 7 plays survive: Ajax; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Anitgone; Electra; Philoctetes; The Women of Trachis - One of big 3 tragedians (middle of the three) - Name comes from Greek for “wise” y “famous”
Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams)
1911-83 American playwright - The Glass Menagerie (1944); A Streetcar Named Desire (1947); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955); Orpheus Descending (1957); Sweet Bird of Youth (1959); Suddenly Last Summer (1958)
Thornton Wilder
1897-1975 American playwright y novelist - Plays: Our Town (1938); The Skin of our Teeth (1942); Novel: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) - Won 3 Pulitzers for these
Wendy Wasserstein
1950-2006 American playwright from NYC - The Heidi Chronicles (1989 - Tony for best play y Pulitzer for drama); The Sisters Rosensweig
Wole Soyinka (Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka)
1934- Nigerian playwright - The Lion and the Jewel (1959); A Dance of the Forests (1960); The Swamp Dwellers (1958); The Trials of Brother Jero - 1st African to win Nobel Prize in Lit (1986) - Active in Nigerian politics, y spent several years in prison
