Memorize these and you could recognize 50.9% of all Playwrights clues.
| # | Answer | Appearances | Sample Clue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Henrik Ibsen | 25 | His 1881 play "Ghosts" was once banned for being "morally deranged" |
| 2 | George Bernard Shaw | 23 | "By George, Eliza, the streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake" |
| 3 | Neil Simon | 21 | "WEAF presents Dinner at Brighton Beach starring the Jacob Jerome family..." |
| 4 | Eugene O'Neill | 20 | "Gimme a whiskey--ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby" |
| 5 | Arthur Miller | 19 | "I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money" |
| 6 | Tennessee Williams | 17 | "Whoever you are--I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" |
| 7 | David Mamet | 12 | "The Glengarry Highland's leads, you're sending Roma out, fine. He's a good man" |
| 8 | Harold Pinter | 12 | He acted in England under the name David Baron before writing plays like "The Birthday Party" |
| 9 | August Wilson | 10 | This author of "The Piano Lesson" founded the Black Horizons Theatre Company in 1968 |
| 10 | Sam Shepard | 10 | 1 of 2 Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights who've also received Oscar nominationsfor acting |
| 11 | Lillian Hellman | 10 | In 1981 Elizabeth Taylor made her Broadway debut in a revival of this playwright's "The Little Foxes" |
| 12 | August Strindberg | 10 | Swedish playwright whose last marriage inspired him to write "The Dance of Death" |
| 13 | Noel Coward | 9 | He wrote "Hay Fever" in the '20s, "Private Lives" in the '30s & "Blithe Spirit" in the '40s |
| 14 | Edward Albee | 9 | This "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" playwright once sold records at Bloomingdale's |
| 15 | Samuel Beckett | 9 | Thisabsurdist playwright left them waiting for him at the 1969 Nobel Prize ceremony |
| 16 | William Inge | 8 | He won an Oscar for writing "Splendor in the Grass", was he's better known for "Bus Stop" |
| 17 | Anton Chekhov | 8 | His early play "Ivanov" opens with a man carrying a gun & yes, a gun does go off by the end |
| 18 | Athol Fugard | 6 | This South African playwright published his first novel "Tsotsi" in 1980 |
| 19 | Tom Stoppard | 6 | "The Murder of Gonzago" is used as a play within a 1966 play by this man who was inspired by Shakespeare |
| 20 | Shakespeare | 6 | Now best remembered as a playwright, in his day he was famous for playing the ghost of Hamlet's father |
| 21 | Oscar Wilde | 6 | His most famous play was first produced in 1895, the year he was sent to jail, & he never wrote another |
| 22 | The Glass Menagerie | 5 | Tom Wingfield brings Jim O'Connor home to meet his sister Laura in this Tennessee Williams play |
| 23 | Clifford Odets | 5 | This "Golden Boy" author grew up in the Bronx & used it as his setting for "Awake & Sing" |
| 24 | Bertolt Brecht | 5 | In 1948 he returned to Europe & soon co-founded the Berliner Ensemble to stage his works |
| 25 | = | 5 | = |
| 26 | Thornton Wilder | 5 | "Good-by, good-by world. Good-by Grover's Corners... Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking..." |
| 27 | Vaclav Havel | 4 | He wrote "The Garden Party" in 1963, 26 years before he was elected president of Czechoslovakia |
| 28 | Moliere | 4 | The 1st actress to play the role of Elmire in "Tartuffe" was his wife, Armande Bejart |
| 29 | Ben Jonson | 4 | His "Volpone" played at Shakespeare's Globe Theater in 1605 |
| 30 | Wendy Wasserstein | 4 | "An American Daughter" by this "Heidi Chronicles" playwright, opened on Broadway in 1997 |
| 31 | Sean O'Casey | 4 | This Irish dramatist wrote the role of Captain Boyle in "Juno and the Paycock" for Barry Fitzgerald |
| 32 | Our Town | 4 | 1 of the 2 plays for which Thornton Wilder won a Pulitzer Prize |
| 33 | George S. Kaufman | 4 | He collaborated on his hit comedy "Beggar On Horseback" with Marc Connelly, not Moss Hart |
| 34 | Eugene Ionesco | 4 | Best known for "Rhinoceros", this "Godfather of the Theater of the Absurd" died in 1994 at age 81 |
| 35 | (Christopher) Marlowe | 4 | His first play, "Tamburlaine the Great", opened in 1587, just 6 years before he was killed |
| 36 | The Heidi Chronicles | 3 | Dr. Heidi Holland is the title character in this Pulitzer Prize winner by Wendy Wasserstein |
| 37 | T.S. Eliot | 3 | "Catty" poet whose 1949 play "The Cocktail Party" is based on an ancient Greek play by Euripides |
| 38 | Harvey Fierstein | 3 | "Torch Song Trilogy" |
| 39 | Death of a Salesman | 3 | In this Arthur Miller play Willy Loman commits suicide for the insurance money |
| 40 | Blithe Spirit | 3 | Noel Coward wrote this "haunting" comedy in only 5 days |
| 41 | Sophocles | 3 | "Show to all in Thebes his father's murderer" |
| 42 | Edmond Rostand | 3 | His 1st produced play was "Les Romanesques", not "Cyrano de Bergerac" |
| 43 | Peter Shaffer | 3 | This "Equus" playwright wrote for TV & radio before his 1st stage play, "Five Finger Exercise", premiered in 1958 |
| 44 | John Osborne | 3 | In the 1950s he was the first of the British playwrights known as "Angry Young Men" |
| 45 | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | 2 | It was Edward Albee's first full-length play, & his most famous |
| 46 | Waiting for Godot | 2 | At the end of this Beckett play, Vladimir & Estragon consider hanging themselves, but have no rope |
| 47 | The Odd Couple | 2 | In this Neil Simon play, Oscar makes his first entrance carrying Fritos, peanuts, pretzels & beer |
| 48 | Steve Martin | 2 | This movie "Jerk" won 2 Outer Critics Circle Awards for his 1995 play "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" |
| 49 | Spain | 2 | "Blood Wedding" author Federico Garcia Lorca was executed by nationalists in this country in 1936 |