Fine Arts

Ancient Greek dramatist and author of the classic tragedy Oedipus Rex.

Athenian tragic dramatist, b. Eleusis. The first of the three great Greek writers of tragedy, Aeschylus was the predecessor of Sophocles and Euripides.

He produced his first plays in 455 but did not win a victory in the competition until 441. He is said to have produced 92 plays (we know the titles of about 80), but won first prize only four times in his life (and once after his death with plays that he had left unperformed).

Aristophanes was regarded as the greatest poet of the Athenian ‘Old Comedy’, and is the only such poet whose work survives.

Irish dramatist, novelist, and poet, who wrote in both French and English. He won international acclaim for his work, which includes the play En attendant Godot.

English dramatist and poet, born in Westminster, London. The high-spirited buoyancy of Jonson's plays and the brilliance of his language have earned him a reputation as one of the great playwrights in English literature.

English dramatist. He produced numerous romantic plays, tragedies, and realistic comedies, both alone and in collaboration.

Playwright, born in Dublin, Ireland. Awarded the Hawthornden Prize in 1926.

English dramatist. He has won many prestigious honors, the crowning of which was the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature.

English dramatist and poet, b. Stratford-on-Avon. He is widely considered the greatest playwright who ever lived.

Irish poet and dramatist, b. near Dublin, of Protestant parents. He was an important figure in the Irish literary renaissance.

From The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music
With lyricist Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber composed the most successful rock musicals of the seventies. His highly melodic approach owed much to the traditions of operetta and the Broadway musical. After separating from Rice, Lloyd Webber had even greater success. Among his hits were Phantom of the Opera (1986) and Sunset Boulevard (1993). He also composed light classical works.

In the course of a long association with the Parisian theatres he produced over 30 plays, and proved equally successful in tragedy and comedy.

From France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
Born in Paris in 1622, Molière became one of the greatest European dramatists.

French dramatist. Racine is the prime exemplar of French classicism.

French philosopher and writer who won early fame as a playwright and poet and later was an influential popularizer of Newtonian natural philosophy.

French novelist, poet, and dramatist. The verse play Hernani (1830) firmly established Hugo as the leader of French Romanticism. This was the first of a series of dramas produced in the 1830s and early 1840s, including Le Roi s'amuse (1832) and Ruy Blas (1838).

From The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music
The authors of a series of highly popular comic operettas, Gilbert and Sullivan's works continued to be widely performed a century after they were first staged.

By 1957, Hansberry completed her first play, "A Raisin in the Sun."

American playwright. His "Angels in America" is a two-part, seven-hour, Pulitzer Prize– and Tony-winning drama of life in the age of AIDS.

American playwright and film director, born in Chicago.

American dramatist, b. New York City. He is widely acknowledged as America's greatest playwright.

From 1945, with his first success, The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams has had a deep impact on the American theatre, bringing to it an original lyric voice and a new level of sexual frankness.

Wilson's plays center on the struggles and identity of African Americans and the deleterious effect of white American institutions on black American life.

German dramatist and poet. He was one of the most influential figures in 20th-century theatre.

German novelist, lyricist, artist, and playwright, b. Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland).

German dramatist. A strong proponent of an uncompromising naturalism in the theatre, Hauptmann's work has been widely produced.

Norwegian playwright. Ibsen's playwriting owed much to his early theatrical experience.

Japanese author, b. Tokyo. His original name was Kimitake Hiraoka and he was born into a samurai family. Mishima wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays. He appeared on stage in some of his plays as well as directing and starring in films.

Novelist and playwright, born in Mexico City, Mexico.

Irish playwright and critic. He revolutionized the Victorian stage, then dominated by artificial melodramas, by presenting vigorous dramas of ideas. The lengthy prefaces to Shaw's plays reveal his mastery of English prose. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Dancer, singer, choreographer, and actor, born in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.

Sarah Bernhardt was one of the most renowned stage actresses of all time; she was celebrated in her own lifetime as “the Divine Sarah.” Her flamboyant style, striking clear voice, and powerful emotional delivery suited her especially to tragic roles.

Anglo-American family of actors.

English actor. He proved himself a versatile male lead in over 60 plays and films.

Like Marlene Dietrich, whose move from the screen to the concert hall paralleled her own, Garland's art and life were tightly interwoven, but, unlike Dietrich, Garland was never in control of her career.

Actor, born in London, UK. He studied part-time at the Fay Compton School of Dramatic Art, and began in repertory in 1934.

Actress, born in London, UK.

Singer and actress, born in Los Angeles, California, USA, the daughter of Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland.

Actor, dancer, and singer. She worked from the 1930s to the 1950s, often starring with Fred Astaire in such films as Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936).

Singer, actress, and director, born in New York City, USA. Starting as a nightclub singer, stage and television appearances brought her the lead in the Broadway show Funny Girl (1964), which she repeated in the 1968 film version to win an Oscar.

The vaudeville performer Fanny Brice was a highly popular entertainer in the early decades of the 20th century. She appeared in more editions of the Ziegfeld Follies than any other star.

Actor and screenwriter, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The son of a Cockney-English immigrant, he had little education but learned of life on the streets and took up juggling. By age 14 he was working professionally, and he soon began to appear in vaudeville and in Europe as ‘The Tramp Juggler’.

British-born US comedian. His earliest success was on Broadway and as a radio star in the 1930s.

Actor and singer, born in Srednike (now Seredzius), Lithuania.

A madcap entertainer, Kaye was known for his tongue-twisters and his rubber-faced mimicry. Though his greatest success was in Hollywood, his recordings of 'Thumbelina' and 'The Ugly Duckling' (1952) have become perennial favourites with children.

From The Cambridge Guide to Theatre
The most influential and best-loved of modern mimes. Inspired by both silent-film comics and the commedia dell'arte, his character Bip, recognizable by his striped jersey, whiteface and the red rose in his top hat, was adaptable to all kinds of pantomime.

Seven brothers, sons of German-born August Rüngeling, who established an American circus empire.

Mae West began her acting career as a child performer in Vaudeville shows in Brooklyn. In the 1920s, West began to write and star in her own Broadway shows.

His extraordinary influence on subsequent theatre is based largely on his two short-lived attempts at directing and on his volume of essays, The Theatre and Its Double.

English theatrical director, born in London. An innovative, unconventional, and controversial figure, Brook mounts energetic productions in which the entire stage is utilized and realistic sets are banished in favor of bold, abstract, and austere settings.

Austrian theatrical producer and director. Reinhardt often used the entire auditorium for a production, seeking to bridge the gap between actor and audience by placing the spectator within the action.

Dramatist, director, and designer. A leading figure in postmodern theater since 1963, when he arrived in New York City, he has created lengthy, often controversial multimedia events that combine drama, dance, and stylized gesture with contemporary instrumental music, opera, and art.

From The Reader's Companion to American History
Theatrical producer and creator of The Ziegfeld Follies. As the master showman of the early twentieth century, Ziegfeld brought a unique and sophisticated style, taste, and extravagance to the theater, popularizing a new form of entertainment called the revue.

British actor, playwright, humorist, and director.