Tremendously influential in both Europe and the United States, August Strindberg (22 January 1849 – 14 May 1912) was begrudgingly praised by Henrik Ibsen as one who would be greater than he, and more generously lauded half a century later… Read More ›
Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) has established himself as a leading American playwright of the late twentieth century. As a master of domestic comedy and one-line humor, his popular appeal was established early in his career…. Read More ›
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (30 October 1751 – 7 July 1816) was the best playwright of eighteenth century England, a time of great actors rather than great playwrights. Judged on theatrical rather than strictly literary merit, Sheridan also ranks with the… Read More ›
The first author ever to have had two plays (French Without Tears and While the Sun Shines) run for more than one thousand performances each on London’s West End, Terence Rattigan (10 June 1911 – 30 November 1977) was one… Read More ›
Ntozake Shange’s (October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018) work embodies a rich confusion of genres and all the contradictions inherent in a world in which violence and oppression polarize life and art. These polarizations in Shange’s work both contribute… Read More ›
Few dramatists can lay claim to the universal reputation achieved by William Shakespeare. His plays have been translated into many languages and performed on amateur and professional stages throughout the world. Radio, television, and film versions of the plays in… Read More ›
Much of J. B. Priestley’s ((13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984)) drama explores the oneness of all human beings. That notion leads the dramatist to view individuals as members of a charmed or magic circle. The circle is continually… Read More ›
Christopher Durang (born January 2, 1949) belongs to the postmodernist wave of American playwrights who emerged during the 1970’s, including A. R. Gurney, Jr., Tina Howe, and Sam Shepard. These writers fused the experimental techniques of the structuralist theater experiments… Read More ›
Henrik Ibsen (20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) is widely acknowledged as the father of modern drama, but his significance in literature and history overshadows the influence of his revolutionary stage techniques and his iconoclastic concept of the theater…. Read More ›
As a playwright, composer, lyricist, producer, director, author, and actor, Noël Coward (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) spent his life entertaining the public. This he did with a flair, sophistication, and polish that are not readily found in… Read More ›
Early in his career, during and after World War I, Jean Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) wrote scenarios for ballets and adaptations of Greek myths. His plays of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s were highly original… Read More ›
Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938, London) has become well known for her willingness to experiment with dramatic structure. Her innovations in this regard are sometimes so startling and compelling that reviewers tend to focus on the novelty of her… Read More ›
It may be said that Frank Chin (born February 25, 1940) has pioneered in the field of Asian American literature. His daring and verbally exuberant theater has asserted the presence of the richly unique and deeply human complexities of Chinese… Read More ›
With labels flourishing during the new era in drama (Osborne’s angry theater, Beckett’s Theater of the Absurd, Pinter’s comedy of menace, Arnold Wesker’s kitchen-sink drama), Alan Ayckbourn (born 12 April 1939), too, has been honored with his own label, the… Read More ›
Despite the fifth century b.c.e. Athenian political and religious issues that are diffused more often in Aeschylus’s tragedies than in those of Sophocles and Euripides and that demand some historical explanation for the modern reader, the plays of Aeschylus (c…. Read More ›
Anton Chekhov (29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904 was talking about other writers when he said, “The best of them are realists and depict life as it is, but because every line they write is permeated, as with a juice, by… Read More ›
Karel Capek (9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was concerned with the natural order of things, a theme that pervaded much of his work. His allegorical approach to expressionism linked his deep philosophical concerns to striking and often disturbing human… Read More ›
The dramatic works of Samuel Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) reflect the evolution of his interests in various means of artistic expression, as he composed plays for stage, radio, cinema, and television. In his stage plays, he… Read More ›
If the weight of critical opinion places Tennessee Williams (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), below Eugene O’Neill as America’s premiere dramatist, there should be no question that the former playwright is without peer in either the diversity of… Read More ›
Working with forms ranging from the morality play to avant-garde expressionism, Amiri Baraka (October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014) throughout his career sought to create dramatic rituals expressing the intensity of the physical and psychological violence that dominates his… Read More ›
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