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(c525-456 BC) Greek playwright whose tragedies are the first known plays. Born at Eleusis (as in "Eleusian Mysteries"), he was a soldier in the Athenian army, and fought in the Athenian-Persian war, most notably at the historic battle of Marathon in 490 BC. The war was the subject of his play Persians (472), the earliest known play by any playwright. Aeschylus first appeared on the Athenian theatre scene in 498 BC, when it was recorded that he competed against Pratinus in the annual play competitions. He won his first Athenian drama competition in 484 BC. Over the course of his life he won 13 competitions. In 476 BC, Aeschylus went to Sicily, where he had found a patron named Hieron. There, in 475 BC, he produced Woman of Aetna, texts of which no longer exist. In 472 BC, he produced Persians. By 468 BC he had returned to Athens. There he produced Seven Against Thebes, the choregos (patron) for which was a young bureaucrat named Pericles, who would eventually become Athens' most famous ruler. The Suppliant Women followed in 463, although it is sometimes dated as far back as 490. The Oresteia, his crowning work, appeared in 458. His last play, Prometheus Bound, was written just before he died, or written by someone else during the next 30 years. Aeschylus also produced, designed and acted. There are many anecdotes about Aeschylus. He was nearly assassinated on stage for flouting the rules about not revealing the Eleusian mysteries. He was said to have written his plays drunk and to have died when an eagle dropped an egg on his head. Aeschylus shares with Thespis and Sophocles the credit for turning the Greek religious ceremonies into theatre. He added a second character (the antagonist), drama and majesty to the previously hymn-like ceremony called the dithyramb. In all, he wrote 80 plays, of which seven survive. Most of his plays were trilogies entered in annual Athenian drama competitions. Only one trilogy survives complete: The Oresteia (458 BC), consisting of Agamemnon, The Choephoroi (sometimes called The Libation Bearers), and Eumenides (sometimes called The Furies). The Oresteia depicts the murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra, and the pursuit of justice by his son and daughter, Orestes and Electra.

(c448-c380 BC) Ancient Greek comedy playwright. He helped create a style of comedy that was known as Greek Old Comedy. It was a mix of topical satire and silliness, often aimed at Athenian politicians, celebrities and intellectuals. His early plays up to Thesmophoriazusae (410 BC), were very traditional in form, using the chorus heavily as well as the parabasis, a speech addressed to the audience. His subsequent plays beginning with The Frogs (405 BC) had more elaborate plots and presaged Greek New Comedy. Eleven of his 40 plays survive and are performed today. Most notable are The Frogs, famous for its comical debate between Euripides and Aeschylus, The Clouds, which lampoons Socrates and other Athenian high-brow thinkers, The Birds, Peace, Lysistrata, The Parliament of Women and Thesmophoriazusae, the last three about the role of women in society.

(1860-1937) Scottish playwright who wrote Peter Pan and many other whimsical comedies. Peter Pan, first produced in 1904, was a popular hit and established Barrie as a top playwright of the era. It featured actress Maude Adams, who had starred in several previous Barrie plays and joined him in a stage partnership. Other Barrie plays include Mary Rose (1920), The Admirable Crichton (1902), What Every Woman Knows (1908) and Quality Street (1902).

(1732-1799) (Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais) French playwright whose satires of the aristocracy helped foment the French Revolution. His two biggest successes, The Barber of Seville (1775) and The Marriage of Figaro (1784), were turned into operas by Mozart.

Francis Beaumont (c.1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625). Elizabethan dramatists who co-wrote 53 comedies and tragi-comedies. Their style of romantic, self-parodic "tragi-comedy" became a brand name in Elizabethan theatre. Shakespeare's later plays are thought to have been influenced by their style. Their most popular plays were Philaster (1610), The Maid's Tragedy (1611), A King and No King (1611), and The Scornful Lady (1613). The Humorous Lieutenant later became the first play performed at Drury Lane, on May 7, 1663. The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607), a satire of chivalry, was noteworthy for having an audience member participate in the play. Both writers occasionally wrote alone: Beaumont wrote The Woman Hater (1606); Fletcher may have collaborated with Shakespeare on Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

(1906-1989) (Samuel Barclay Beckett). Irish-born absurdist playwright and novelist. He moved to France in 1937 and wrote many of his plays in French, translating them into English himself. He won the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature. His plays like Waiting for Godot, Endgame and Happy Days are exemplars of theatre of the absurd and existentialism. They consist mainly of brief bits of dialogue, usually repetitive phrases and amusing non-sequiturs, and portray people as creatures of habit who fail to communicate and face a dark future. Incidentally, he may have written the shortest play in the theatre: Breath, with a running time of 35 seconds.

(1640-1689) Considered the first female English playwright, she was born to a colonial family in Guiana. She married a Dutch businessman and moved to the Netherlands in 1666. After her husband died, become a spy for the British government. By the age of 31, she was writing for the English theatre. She wrote 16 plays in total. Her most famous was The Rovers, still performed today.

(1898-1956) German playwright and director who advocated alienation or "A-Effect": forcing the audience to stay objective toward the characters and drama. Brecht also collaborated with Erwin Piscator and other German theatre figures of the 1920s-30s in the development of "Epic Theatre." Epic Theatre, Brecht said, "appeals less to the spectator's feelings than to his reason." It emphasized communication of ideas over traditional aspects of theatre such as empathy and unity of time. Brecht's plays stand on their own as good dramas, notable for their morally complex characters. His earliest works, including Baal, Jungle of the Cities and A Man's a Man, were expressionistic and experimental. These were followed by several collaborations with composer Kurt Weill, most notably The Threepenny Opera, an adaptation of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogonny, The Seven Deadly Sins and St. Joan. In 1933 Brecht fled Nazi Germany, winding up in New York. During this time he wrote several highly regarded dramas, The Life of Galileo, Mother Courage, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Visions of Simone Machard, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. He returned to Germany in 1949, where he created his own theatre company, the Berliner Ensemble.

(1860-1904) Influential Russian playwright and short story writer. Along with Ibsen and Shaw, he was one of the first "modern" playwrights, writing in a naturalistic manner about Russian rural and middle class life. His most famous plays were all produced between 1898 and 1904 by the Moscow Art Theatre. They include The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, the Cherry Orchard, and The Three Sisters.

(1878-1942) American playwright, actor, songwriter and manager. Cohan perfected a style of light comedic drama that influenced early 20th-Century popular American theatre. Some of his many plays are Seven Keys to Baldpate, The Little Millionaire (1911), Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway (1906), and Little Nelly Kelly (1923). He also wrote the popular WWI song "Over There" and acted in Eugene O'Neil's Ah, Wilderness! (1933) and Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather be Right (1937).

(1670-1729) English playwright of Restoration Comedies, notably The Way of the World. A contemporary of Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and William Wycherley, he satirized the hypocrisies of the English upper class. The sexual indelicateness of his plays provoked a wave of theatre censorship in the 1700s. The Way of the World and other works are popular today and have been source material for many plays and films.

(1606-1684) A principle figure in Classical French Tragedy along with Racine. A contemporary also of Moliere, he benefited from Cardinal Richelieu's patronage of the theatre. His most famous play is Le Cid (1637).

(1899-1973) English actor, composer and playwright. Coward was a celebrity in London's West End theatre community during the 1930s-40s, often starring in his own plays and once having four of them running simultaneously. He wrote 46 plays, mostly witty romantic comedies about individuals searching for personal satisfaction in a conformist society. His most popular plays were Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Blithe Spirit and Present Laughter. He also wrote movies.

(520-423 BC) Ancient Greek comedy playwright. Though no complete play of his survives, it is recorded that he defeated Aristophanes in 424 BC in the Athenian comedy competition. Like Aristophanes, Cratinus wrote Old Comedy, a mixture of satire and Gilbert & Sullivan-esque silliness. Like other Greek playwrights, he himself is lampooned in one of Aristophanes' plays, Knights.

(c480-406 BC) Ancient Greek tragedy playwright. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is credited with turning Greek religious ceremonies into modern theatre. His contributions include the prologue, an opening scene which sets the stage for what is to come, and the deus ex machina, a storytelling device that ties up the loose ends. His most important contribution was realism; he focused on personal instead of religious subjects, depicted ordinary people as well as nobility, mixed comedy and drama, and frequently used female protagonists. His 90 plays, of which 19 survive, are considered the most modern in the Ancient Greek canon. The most highly regarded is The Bacchae (406, produced after his death). Others include Medea, Electra and The Trojan Women.

(1862-1921) French playwright whose bedroom comedies typified French farce. His elegant, economical style influenced later comedy playwrights like Noel Coward. Occupe-toi d'Amelie (1908) and Le Dindon (1898) are considered his best plays. Others are Un Fil a la patte (1894), La Dame de chez Maxim's (1899), La Puce a l'oreille (1907), On purge bebe (1910).

(1865-1909) Prolific American playwright and director whose light entertainments were popular in 1900s America. An oddball as a child, Fitch was known even then for his wit and foppishness. He attended Amherst, then went to New York to become a playwright. The actor Richard Mansfield commissioned a play from him, Beau Brummell, produced at Madison Square Garden in 1890. In all, Fitch wrote over forty plays, ranging from comedy to melodrama to history. He was popular in his time -- four of his plays ran simultaneously in New York during 1904. His plays are filled with the melodrama and sentiment typical of American theatre in the early 1900s, but hidden between the lines were sharp observations of social climbing and urbanization. His two most highly regarded works were The Truth (1907), a comedy about a habitual liar, and The City (1909), about a small-town family trying to adjust to the big city.

(1685-1732) English poet and playwright. His chief work was The Beggar's Opera (1728), a parody of Italian opera. An example of Ballad Opera, it used popular songs of the time instead of an original score. It also became the source for Bertoldt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera.

(1898-1937) American composer who helped introduce jazz into musical theatre and concert music. He began composing popular songs, such as Swanee, then collaborated with his lyricist brother Ira on Broadway musicals, notably Lady, Be Good, Funny Face, Strike up the Band, Girl Crazy, Of Thee I Sing and Porgy and Bess.

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, 1836-1911, and Sir Arthur Sullivan, 1842-1900. The English lyricist and composer, respectively, of comic operettas known for their witty satire of the English upper-class. For further study, we recommend The Gilbert & Sullivan Archive.

(c. 1497-1580) English author whose comedy-dramas were precursors of Elizabethan Theatre.

(1874-1929) Austrian playwright noted mainly for writing Jedermann, an expressionistic adaptation of the Medieval morality play Everyman, and for being Richard Strauss's chief librettist. He also wrote many romantic dramas with a heavily expressionistic style, such as Der Tor und der Tod (The Fool and Death, 1893), Elektra (1903), Oedipus and the Sphinx (1905), and Ariadne auf Naxos (1912).

(1881-1913) English writer of naturalistic plays, the most famous of which is Hindle Wakes (1912), about a poor woman who refuses to marry the rich man who wants her.

(10th century AD) The first recorded female playwright. All that is known about her life is that she was a nun and lived in Saxony (Germany) sometime in the tenth century AD. She adapted several of Terence's plays to Christian themes, in keeping with the strict religiosity of the time. Her plays were intended to be read rather than performed but are nonetheless witty and farcical. Several of her plays have been staged since 1900.

(1828-1906) Norwegian playwright and poet whose realistic style influenced many subsequent playwrights. His most significant plays were Peer Gynt, A Doll's House, The Wild Duck and Hedda Gabler.

(1913-1973) American dramatist who wrote about small-town life. His most notable plays are Come Back, Little Sheba (1950), about a woman living in the past, Picnic (1953), Bus Stop (1955), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957).

(1912-) Romanian-French playwright, known for absurdist plays such as The Bald Prima Donna, The Lesson, The Chairs, Rhinoceros, and Exit the King.

(1873-1907) French poet and playwright famous for his comedy Ubu Roi (1896), about a smug bourgeois who becomes a despot. The play satirizes the upper class, Oedipus Rex and naturalistic theatre, and was a precursor of Absurdist Theatre.

(1851-1929) British playwright whose dramas The Silver King, Mrs. Dane's Defence and Michael and His Lost Angel were highly regarded in their day and considered to be from the same naturalistic school as Ibsen's plays.

(1573?-1637) English dramatist, poet, and contemporary of Shakespeare. Although he also wrote tragedies, his most famous plays are comedies, particularly Volpone, a satire about greed.

(1558-1594) English playwright of revenge tragedies. His The Spanish Tragedy started the Elizabethan revenge tragedy genre and he is thought to have had a hand in other revenge tragedies, including Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. He is also believed to have written the first dramatization of Hamlet, now lost, on which Shakespeare based his Hamlet.

(1815-1888) French playwright. An important figure in the development of French Farce. His clever, cynical farces were popular during the 1800s and are often revived in France, but infrequently translated into English. He was a precusor of Molnar.

(1920-) American playwright. Wrote the books for West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959).

(1814-1841) Russian playwright, associated with the German Sturm und Drang movement. His most famous play is Masquerade (1835), about obsessive jealousy.

(1729-1781) German playwright and theorist, associated with naturalism. He believed plays should be written for the middle class.

(1898-1936) Spanish playwright who emphasized symbolism. His most famous work is The House of Bernarda Alba (1936), about a household of sisters ruled by a tyrannical mother. He was killed in the Spanish Civil War.

American dramatist popular in the early 1900s.

(1688-1763) French playright of delicate romantic comedies.

Marlowe, Christopher (1564-1593) English playwright who helped start the Elizabethan period in theatre, introduced blank verse to drama and influenced many later playwrights. Only one of his plays, Edward II, survives in its original version. His work first appeared in the early 1580s, when he collaborated on several plays including Dido, Queen of Carthage. His first play was Tamburlaine the Great (1587), a dramatically unwieldy but poetically brilliant two-part account of 14th-century Asian conqueror Tamerlane. The first part was performed in 1587 with Edward Alleyn in the title role. This was followed by The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, written between 1589 and 1592. It was adapted from a German story, and inspired Goethe's Faust. Marlowe's last two plays were Edward II, a restrained history play and the first in the English language to openly deal with homosexuality, and The Jew of Malta, the violent, comedic story of a manipulative schemer which starred Alleyn and influenced Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Marlowe's death at age 29 has inspired much armchair speculation. He was stabbed in the eye in the back room of a London tavern. Three men, including a known spy named Robert Poley, claimed Marlowe was killed in self-defense after he attacked one of them over a debt. Their story had a few holes, and conspiracy lovers have speculated that Marlowe may have been murdered because of sacrilegious statements, because of espionage activities (there is some evidence he was a spy), or that he faked his own death to "come in from the cold" and continued writing plays under the nom de plume of an actor he knew named William Shakespeare.

(c342-c291 BC) Greek comedy playwright who, along with Phlyates, represents the ancient New Comedy school. Most of his plays are lost, but parts found their way into plays by the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence (whom Julius Caesar called "a half-Menander"), Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, and Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In 1905 a manuscript was discovered in Cairo that contained pieces of five Menander plays, and in 1957 a complete play, Diskolos (The Grouch, 317 BC), was unearthed in Egypt. Menander's main contribution a comedy model that influenced all future comedy theatre. Unlike Aristophanes, Menander's characters were not local celebrities but ordinary people. The chorus in Menander's plays resembled a modern chorus -- singers and dancers who provided filler between acts. Menander sometimes portrayed them as drunken audience members. His characters were classic comedy archetypes, such as the curmudgeonly old man in The Grouch, that became staples of comedy. Most of all, the style of comedy that Menander created, with its emphasis on mistaken identity, romance and character humor, has become the model for most later comedies, from the Romans to Broadway to TV.

(c1580-1627) English dramatist. A contemporary of Shakespeare, Middleton wrote underrated tragedies, comedies and court pageants. His political satire A Game at Chess was banned by King James. For further research we recommend Chris Cleary's site.

(1915-) American playwright who realistically depicted the conflict between individuals and society. His most successful plays were All My Sons, about a war profiteer, Death of a Salesman, about a travelling salesman, The Crucible, about the Salem with trials, A View from the Bridge, After the Fall and The Price.

(1622-1673) French comedic playwright and actor. Initially studied to be a lawyer, but gave it up to become part of a theatrical company. His early plays were in the Commedia Dell'Arte tradition, but he eventually developed his own sophisticated style of farce. His main subjects were hypocrisy, particularly in the religious community (Tartuffe) and the upper classes (Les Precieuses ridicules). Ironically, he died onstage while performing the lead role in Le Malade imaginarie (The Hypochondriac).

(1878-1952) Hungarian author of popular farces. Liliom (1909), about a dead man reliving his life, was the basis for Rogers and Hammerstein's musical Carousel.

(1653-1725) Japanese playwright who wrote 160 plays, most in the Kabuki and Joruri (puppet) traditions.

American turn-of-the-century playwright.

(1880-1964) Irish playwright who perfected a style of comedy drama centered on Irish slum life. His most popular plays are Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926).

(1888-1953) Nobel prize-winning American playwright whose work concentrated on family conflicts and modern social dilemmas. His most highly regarded plays include Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Iceman Cometh, Desire Under the Elms, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Mourning Becomes Electra, Ah, Wilderness!, and The Emperor Jones.

(1906-1963) American playwright. In his early years, he was associated with the Group Theatre, and his early plays were socialist dramas, the most notable of which were Waiting for Lefty (1935), and Golden Boy (1937). His later plays were more commercial and included Clash by Night (1941), The Big Knife (1949) and The Country Girl (1950). He also wrote the film The Sweet Smell of Success.

(1855-1934) English playwright and actor. A scion of the upper classes, Pinero was educated in private schools, acted from June, 1874, to July, 1881 and then became a popular playwright of his day. He was knighted in 1909. Today, he is most remembered for his tribute to the acting profession, Trelawny of the Wells, as well as the social drama, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.

(1930-) English playwright. His early plays, such as The Birthday Party (1958), The Caretaker (1960), The Dumb Waiter, The Homecoming (1965), and No Man's Land (1975), are studies of human territoriality. He gradually evolved into a more conventional style, typified by deep psychological examination of his characters and experimentation with dramatic structure, as in Betrayal, where he told a conventional love story backward.

(254-184 BC) Along with Terence, one of Ancient Rome's most popular playwrights. His bawdy, mistaken-identity comedies were influenced by Menander and in turn influenced many other playwrights, including Shakespeare (A Comedy of Errors) and Stephen Sondheim (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum).

American composer. Composed songs, writing his own lyrics, and wrote musicals, including Gay Divorcee, Nymph Errant, Anything Goes, Du Barry was a Lady, Kiss Me Kate, Can-Can and Silk Stockings.

(1799-1837) Russian playwright and poet, known for his drama Boris Godunov.

(1639-1699) French writer of tragedies. A contemporary of Moliere and Corneille, Racine's plays are characterized by female protagonists, classical structure, and great dramatic intensity. His most successful, Athalie, is popular today.

(1911-) English playwright. His most well-kown plays are thoughtful dramas like The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1948), Separate Tables (1954).

(1829-1871) English playwright and director who was influential in the rise of Naturalism.

(1902-) American composer. Parnered initially with Lyricist Lorenz Hart to create many witty, light Broadway hits like The Girl Friend (1926), On Your Toes (1936), Babes in Arms (1937), Pal Joey (1940), among others. When Hart died in 1943, Rodgers partnered with Oscar Hammerstein II and produced several operatic Broadway musicals, including Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951), Flower Drum Song (1958) and The Sound of Music (1959). In latter years he collaborated with Stephen Sondheim.

(1868-1918) French playwright, most famous for Cyrano de Bergerac. Other plays include L'Aiglon (1900) and Chantecler (1910).

(1831-1908) French playwright who was a major figure in French theatre at the turn of the twentieth century. He was noted for well-constructed dramas, many written for Sarah Bernhardt. His most popular plays include Dora (1877), Fedora (1882), Theodora (1884), Cleopatre (1890), Madame Sans-Gene (1893) for the actress Rejane, La Sorciere (1903), and La Tosca (1887), which Puccini turned into an opera.

(1862-1931) Cynical Austrian dramatist famous for the play Reigen (1902), better known as La Ronde, which depicts love as an endless dance. His other plays include Anatol (1893) and Lebelei (1895).

(1791-1861) French playwright with whom the term "well-made play" is associated. The term referred to a type of highly crafted theatre that was popular during Scribe's time.

(c 4 BC - 65 AD) Roman scholar and author of seven revenge tragedies. Written during the reign of the art-obsessed despot Nero, Seneca's plays were sensational revenge tales based on Greek mythology. Although his plays influenced Elizabethan revenge drama, they were designed for staged reading rather than performance and consequently are seldom performed. He was, incidentally, one of Nero's tutors and is credited with persuading Nero to spare the life of the tyrant's friend Otho. Unfortunately, Seneca was less persuasive at saving himself two years later. He was forced to commit suicide at Nero's order, along with fellow author Petronius (The Satyricon).

(1564-1616) Elizabethan playwright and actor whose 37 plays have been popular continuously for the last 400 years. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon into the English middle-class, Shakespeare began as an actor and joined a troupe called the Chaimberlain's Men. His plays began appearing around 1590. From then until his retirement in 1612, he wrote some of the stage's best comedies, tragedies and historical dramas. For further research, we highly recommend the Complete Works of Shakespeare, formatted for the World Wide Web and annotated by Jeremy Hylton.

(1856-1950) English dramatist and essayist who popularized a theatre of ideas and used the stage as a forum to put forth his views on society, religion, the role of women and other issues. He began as a critic and helped popularize Ibsen in England. His playwriting career began in the 1890s and by the early 1900s he had already written many of his most famous plays. His own plays were brought to America by actor-producers Richard Mansfield and Arnold Daly. Shaw was more concerned with the theatre of ideas than with the theatre of emotions, and often used his plays to attack society. His most popular plays Arms and the Man, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Man and Superman, Pygmalion, Heartbreak House and Saint Joan display a sophisticated wit and modern sensibility.

(1751-1816) English dramatist and politician. He was popular in his day for his comedies of manners, the most well-known of which is The School for Scandal. He also managed the Drury Lane Theatre from 1776 to 1809.

American composer and librettist who injected a literary note into the Broadway musical in the 1960s and '70s. Some of his many works include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods.

(496-406 BC) Greek tragedy playwright noted for his portrayals of Oedipus and his great craftsmanship. He first gained notice in 468 BC when he defeated Aeschylus in the annual Athenian tragedy competition. Over his lifetime he won 18-20 competitions and finished second often. Outside of the theatre, he was first a soldier, then a strategos (general) and later a government official. When he was 90 years old, his sons took him to court to prove him incompetent of handling his own affairs. He read from his play Oedipus at Colonus and was so eloquent the jury ruled him mentally competent. Sophocles' innovations included the addition of a third actor and greater emphasis on inter-personal drama rather than god-human conflict. He was the best craftsman of the Greek playwrights, and Aristotle modeled his theories about drama in Poetics on Sophocles' Plays. Characteristically, Sophocles' plays are layered with irony. For instance, in The Oedipus Trilogy Oedipus believes he is innocent and seeks the truth about his father's murder; the truth that awaits him, however, is that he is his father's murderer. Similarly, in Electra, the murderer Aegisthus rejoices when he sees a body under a blanket and believes it to be Orestes, the man who has relentlessly hunted him. However, the body is that of his accomplice Clytemnestra and Orestes has indeed caught him. Irony echoes the theme many of of Sophocles' plays -- the folly of arrogance and the wisdom of accepting fate.

(1552?-1599) English poet whose main contribution to theatre is a verse play, Epithalamion.

(1849-1912) Swedish playwright noted for his realistic depiction of men and women engaged in psychological wars in their relationships. He wrote at least 50 plays, becoming increasingly symbolic in his later years. Among his most noted plays are Miss Julie (1888), The Ghost Sonata (1907), and Dance of Death (1901).

(1871-1909) John Millington Synge. Irish playwright associated with the Irish Dramatic Movement in the early 1900s. His writing is characterized by a great ear for Irish dialogue and a poetic quality. His most popular play by far is The Playboy of the Western World (1907). Others include In the Shadow of the Glen (1903) and Riders to the Sea (1904).

(c190-159 BC) Roman playwright who wrote several popular comedies. A contemporary of Plautus, he adapted many Greek comedies to Roman situations, adding new characters, social commentary and witty dialog.

American playwright of the late 1800s-early 1900s.

(1562-1635) Spanish playwright, regarded by some as one of the theatre's major dramatists. His wrote a wide variety of plays, of which over 400 survive. Most notably, he developed a style of comedy-drama that influenced Moliere and other French playwrights. He also was one of the first to write about the common man. He believed theatre was about involving the audience rather than ascribing to formal rules. His most famous plays are The Sheep Well (1614), Marriages of Convenience and La Dorotea.

(1797-1863) French poet and playwright. Adapted Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Othello. His own plays were part of the Romantic movement. His tragedy Chatterton was considered in its day to be a perfect example of Romanticism.

(1948 - ) English composer of many major musicals since the 1970s, including Jesus Christ, Superstar, Cats, Evita, Starlight Express. Most of his music blends rock and Broadway styles, and he helped create the genre of rock opera. He composed his first production, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, at the age of 20. He also composed film soundtracks in his early days.

(1856-1900) Irish playwright famous for his witty social satires. Born in Dublin, he went to Oxford, and, after dabbling as a poet, novelist, essayist and general bon vivant, turned to playwriting. After a few less-than-spectacular efforts at drama, he devised a clever mixture of social drama and comedy of manners, reminiscent of Restoration comedy. These began with Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), and continued with A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He also wrote Salome (1892), a lurid drama written in French that was banned in London. He was one of the first to exploit the age of celebrity, becoming a popular lecturer and personality on both sides of the Atlantic. His theatrical career came to an end when he was imprisoned briefly for homosexuality. He died November 30, 1900, in Paris.

(1914- ) American playwright who wrote several seminal psychological dramas in the 1940s-'60s. His plays include The Glass Menagerie (1945), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Orpheus Descending (1957), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), Night of the Iguana (1962), Suddenly Last Summer (1958).

(1865-1939) Irish poet and playwright, an important figure in the Irish Dramatic Movement. His early plays were sentimental and poetic. With the advent of the Irish Dramatic Movement in the early 1900s, he turned to naturalism and often wrote about the poor. His later plays were influenced by Japanese Noh and Kabuki theatre. He was also the artistic director of the Abbey Theatre.

(1840-1902). French writer and playwright, a major figure in Naturalism. Of his plays, the most well-known is Therese Raquin. Several of his novels were also adapted for the stage.