Theater Study Guide

General

205 answers | 679 clues

Must-Know (9)

Eugene O'Neill 22x 13.6% stumper $845 avg J:1 DJ:21

DJ $200 1991 In 1933, George M. Cohan appeared in the first play he didn't write, this author's first comedy "Ah, Wilderness!"

DJ $600 1996 His 1924 play "Desire Under the Elms" wasn't publicly performed in London until 1940; it was banned

DJ $1,000 2001 Gabriel Byrne & Cherry Jones co-starred in the 2000 revival of this playwright's "A Moon for the Misbegotten"

Neil Simon 14x 15.4% stumper $400 avg J:3 DJ:10 FJ:1

J $100 1991 The last installment of his semi-autobiographical trilogy was "Broadway Bound"

DJ $800 2026 In 1983 during the run of "Brighton Beach Memoirs", the former Alvin Theatre was renamed for this playwright

J $900 DD 1989 "Chapter Two" opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theater, which, not surprisingly, is owned by this playwright

Tennessee Williams 13x 15.4% stumper $569 avg J:4 DJ:9

J $100 1996 Marlon Brando played Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" by this American playwright

J $500 DD 1991 "Confessions of a Nightingale" is a 1-man show about this playwright

DJ $1,200 2008 Eleanor took Indira Gandhi to see this man's play "The Night Of The Iguana"; it left both ladies "a little baffled"

Henrik Ibsen 13x 7.7% stumper $562 avg J:1 DJ:12

DJ $200 1995 Lynn Redgrave appeared in a 1992 Broadway revival of "The Master Builder" by this Norwegian playwright

DJ $600 1996 "Et Dukkehjem" is the original Norwegian title of his 1879 play "A Doll's House"

DJ $1,500 DD 2001 From 1851 to 1857 he served as writer-manager of the Norwegian Theatre in Bergen

Arthur Miller 12x 25.0% stumper $542 avg J:3 DJ:9

DJ $200 2001 Amy Irving starred in the Broadway premiere of "Broken Glass" by this "Death of a Salesman" playwright

J $500 DD 1998 (Hi, I'm Melissa Joan Hart.) I made my Broadway debut when I was 15 in this author's "The Crucible"

DJ $1,000 1993 His daughter Rebecca directed a revival of his play "After the Fall" in 1992

kabuki 10x $700 avg J:1 DJ:9

DJ $200 1993 In the 1600s Danjuro I became one of the greatest actors in this form of Japanese drama

DJ $600 1994 Since the 1600s the Ichikawa family has been famous for acting in this form of drama

DJ $1,600 2002 Ichimura Manjiro is a famous Onnagata, a male actor who plays female roles in this form of Japanese drama

George Bernard Shaw 9x 22.2% stumper $644 avg J:1 DJ:8

J $200 1991 "Man and Superman" was the first play he wrote in the 20th century

DJ $600 1994 Deborah Kerr played the title role in a 1977 revival of this playwright's "Candida"

DJ $1,200 2006 A year after he wrote "Candida", he became a drama critic for the Saturday Review, a job he held for 3 1/2 years

Our Town 8x $471 avg J:3 DJ:4 FJ:1

J $100 1993 The 2nd act of this Thornton Wilder play deals with the marriage of George Gibbs & Emily Webb

J $600 2017 This Thornton Wilder play premiered on Broadway in 1938 with Frank Craven as the Stage Manager

DJ $1,500 DD 1993 This Thornton Wilder play calls for no scenery other than 2 arched trellises

Harold Pinter 8x 75.0% stumper $1,150 avg DJ:8

DJ $800 1996 This British playwright gave us a "Birthday Party" in 1958; in 1991, it was "Party Time"

DJ $1,000 1993 He wrote "The Dumb Waiter" in 1957 & "The Caretaker" in 1960

DJ $800 1986 Author of "The Caretaker", this Englishman admits American gangster films influenced him

Should-Know (43)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 7x $657 avg J:1 DJ:6

J $200 1987 This play's1st act finds Martha telling George he is such a nothing he almost doesn't exist

DJ $600 1995 This famous 1962 drama has only 4 characters: Martha, George, Nick & Honey

DJ $2,000 2016 A rough night at George & Martha's, this 1962 Broadway drama went 2-dimensional in '66

Waiting for Godot 7x $517 avg J:2 DJ:4 FJ:1

J $100 1991 This S, Beckett play inspired another playwright to write a follow-up, "Godot Has Come"

DJ $1,000 1999 Experimental play containing the line "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!"

FJ 2022 Asked to design a new set for a restaging of this 1952 play, Alberto Giacometti came up with one scraggly plaster tree

The Mousetrap 7x 33.3% stumper $667 avg J:1 DJ:5 FJ:1

J $200 2003 A fine cheese selection is laid out for this Agatha Christie mystery play that debuted in 1952

DJ $1,200 2010 With over 20,000 performances, the longest-running show in London's West End is this Agatha Christie play

FJ 2007 Richard Attenborough, who was in the original 1952 cast of this play, helped celebrate its performance No. 20,000 in 2000

Death of a Salesman 7x 16.7% stumper $483 avg J:2 DJ:4 FJ:1

J $100 1987 Arthur Miller's play in which being "well-liked" is Willy Loman's criterion for success

DJ $600 1991 This A. Miller masterpiece is subtitled "Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem"

DJ $1,200 2015 Linda is mom to Biff & Happy in this drama

Cyrano de Bergerac 7x $360 avg DJ:5 FJ:2

DJ $200 1987 This long-nosed title character composes a poem while fighting a duel

DJ $600 1988 In last scene of this play, Roxane laments, "I never loved but 1 man in my life, & lost him twice"

FJ 1993 Moliere based part of "Les Fourberies de Scapin" on a play by this man about whom Rostand wrote

Shakespeare 7x $429 avg J:1 DJ:6

DJ $200 1996 In 1995 3 actors presented "The Compleat Works of" this playwright "Abridged" in just 105 minutes

J $600 2004 Play Dogberry & you may win the St. Clair Bayfield Award for a supporting role in one of this man's plays

DJ $200 1991 The 16th century chronicles of Raphael Holinshed were a source for his "Macbeth" & "King Lear"

Anton Chekhov 7x $471 avg J:1 DJ:6

J $300 1996 This Russian playwright died in July, 1904, less than 6 months after his "The Cherry Orchard" premiered

DJ $600 1999 In 1997 Jeanne Tripplehorn & Amy Irving starred on Broadway in this playwright's "Three Sisters"

DJ $200 1995 His wife Olga Knipper created the role of Madame Ranevskaya in his play "The Cherry Orchard"

Lillian Hellman 6x 16.7% stumper $833 avg DJ:6

DJ $600 1992 In 1985 "Lillian", a one-woman show about this playwright, opened at the Kennedy Center

DJ $1,000 1994 Her 1951 play "The Autumn Garden" has been called "a Chekhovian drama"

DJ $800 1992 In 1981 Elizabeth Taylor starred in a revival of this playwright's "The Little Foxes"

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 6x 16.7% stumper $1,000 avg DJ:6

DJ $200 1997 In this Tennessee Williams play, Big Daddy returns to his cotton plantation unaware that he's dying of cancer

DJ $600 1996 Gooper is Big Daddy's older son in this Tennessee Williams play

DJ $1,200 2010 The Pollitts get together to celebrate Big Daddy's 65th birthday in this play; family drama ensues

A Raisin in the Sun 6x 33.3% stumper $967 avg DJ:6

DJ $600 2001 (Hi. I'm Wayne Brady.) I did a Florida production of this Lorraine Hansberry play about a black family trying to move up

DJ $1,000 DD 1989 Sidney Poitier co-starred in this 1959 drama, the 1st play by a black woman produced on Broadway

DJ $600 1989 The title of this Lorraine Hansberry play came from a poem by Langston Hughes

A Man for All Seasons 6x 33.3% stumper $967 avg J:1 DJ:5

DJ $600 1995 This Robert Bolt drama about the final years of Sir Thomas More won the 1962 Tony for Best Play

DJ $1,000 1989 Paul Scofield starred in the original production of this play & won an Oscar for the film version

DJ $600 1993 In 1961 Paul Scofield made his American stage debut as Sir Thomas More in this play

Desire Under the Elms 6x 40.0% stumper $560 avg J:1 DJ:4 FJ:1

DJ $400 1985 In O'Neill play, a passionate stepmother & stepson found "Desire" there

DJ $600 1993 In this Eugene O'Neill play, "two enormous" trees "brood oppressively over the" Cabot farmhouse

DJ $1,000 1987 Abbie Cabot tempts her stepson Eben beneath the trees in this O'Neill tragedy

Clifford Odets 6x 50.0% stumper $1,167 avg DJ:6

DJ $1,000 1993 His 1935 play "Awake and Sing" is set in the Bronx during the Depression

DJ $1,000 1992 The one-act "Waiting for Lefty" was this playwright's first theatrical success

DJ $1,000 1996 The title of his 1935 play "Awake and Sing" is a quotation from Isaiah 26:19

William Inge 6x 33.3% stumper $1,233 avg DJ:6

DJ $800 2010 It was a picnic for him when he won in 1953 for "Picnic"

DJ $1,000 1995 His 1953 play "Picnic" won the Pulitzer Prize & the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award

DJ $1,000 1993 He gained fame as a playwright with his second produced play, "Come Back, Little Sheba"

Uncle Vanya 5x 40.0% stumper $1,180 avg J:1 DJ:4

J $100 1990 Chekhov uncle whose last line is "Oh, if you only knew how my heart aches!"

DJ $800 2015 Maria Vasilyevna is the mother of this Chekhov title character

DJ $1,000 1994 In a play by Chekhov, Ivan Voinitsky is this title character

The Glass Menagerie 5x $950 avg DJ:4 FJ:1

DJ $200 1993 The 1944 play in which Laura tells Amanda, "I'm not expecting any gentlemen callers"

DJ $1,200 2002 It's Tennessee Williams' semi-autobiographical play about the Wingfield family

FJ 1988 This play is divided into "parts", not acts, with the 2nd titled "The Gentleman Calls"

Sam Shepard 5x 40.0% stumper $1,000 avg DJ:5

DJ $400 2003 For playing Chuck Yeager in "The Right Stuff", this dramatist got an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor

DJ $1,000 DD 1997 A 1996 production of "Buried Child" marked this playwright's first Broadway show after 3 decades in the theater

DJ $400 1990 This playwright directed the first production of his own play, "Fool for Love" in 1983

Noel Coward 5x $920 avg DJ:5

DJ $600 1992 Perhaps in response to the gloom of WWII, he wrote the light comedy "Blithe Spirit" in just 6 days

DJ $1,000 DD 1993 This urbane Englishman wrote about a weekend in the country in the 1925 comedy "Hay Fever"

DJ $1,000 1990 The characters in his play "Hay Fever" were inspired by actress Laurette Taylor & her family

Moscow 5x 60.0% stumper $600 avg J:1 DJ:4

DJ $200 1995 This Russian city's acclaimed art theatre made an extensive tour of Europe & the U.S. in the 1920s

DJ $1,000 DD 1999 (Hi, I'm Ekaterina Gordeeva.) Chekhov's "Three Sisters" dream of going to this city--my birthplace

J $200 1990 "The 3 Sisters" dream of moving to this city, where Chekov graduated from medical school

Equus 5x $300 avg J:1 DJ:4

DJ $200 1993 The title of this Peter Shaffer play is Latin for "horse"

J $500 1985 Richard Burton & Peter Firth recreated their stage roles for this film

DJ $200 1991 This drama about a boy obsessed with horses won the 1975 Tony award for best play

Dublin 5x $480 avg J:1 DJ:4

DJ $400 2008 Sean O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock" takes place in a tenement house in this capital city

DJ $600 1988 In 1904, the famed Abbey Theatre opened on Abbey Street in this city

DJ $400 2006 This city's Abbey Theatre was famous for debuting the plays of Synge, O'Casey & Yeats

Chicago 5x 20.0% stumper $660 avg J:1 DJ:4

J $300 1999 David Mamet wrote a play called "Sexual Perversity In" this Midwest city--coincidentally, his birthplace

DJ $600 1990 Gwen Verdon & Chita Rivera played murderesses in this musical named for a Midwest city

DJ $1,200 2016 On Broadway in 1975, Billy Flynn was played by Jerry Orbach, but this show got into Gere on the silver screen in 2002

August Wilson 5x 60.0% stumper $1,220 avg J:1 DJ:4

J $500 2000 (Hi, I'm S. Epatha Merkerson.) I won a Tony nomination for playing Berneice in this playwright's 1990 Pulitzer Prize-winning play "The Piano Lesson"

DJ $1,200 2003 His first major work, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", received a 1985 N.Y. Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play

DJ $800 1994 This playwright won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1987, for "Fences"

A Streetcar Named Desire 5x 20.0% stumper $660 avg J:2 DJ:3

J $200 2002 "Whoever you are--I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" is from this Tennessee Williams play

DJ $800 2022 Spoken by Stanley, the first line in this play is "Hey, there! Stella, baby!"

DJ $1,500 DD 1990 The Thomas Hart Benton painting seenheredepicts the original cast of this T. Williams play:

A Doll's House 5x $1,050 avg DJ:4 FJ:1

DJ $400 1999 Janet McTeer's performance as Nora in this Ibsen drama won her a Best Actress Tony in 1997

DJ $800 2005 (Sarah of the Clue Crew stands amidst a theater's seats.) It's the part of the theatre where the audience sits, & if an actor gets sick, you might be asked if there's a doctor in it

DJ $1,000 1996 Paul Lukas made his Broadway debut December 27, 1937, playing Dr. Rank in this Ibsen play

Thornton Wilder 5x 20.0% stumper $1,080 avg DJ:5

DJ $800 2001 In the '30s this "Our Town" dramatist was a lecturer on literature at the University of Chicago

DJ $1,000 DD 1990 "Hello, Dolly!" was based on his play, "The Matchmaker"

DJ $800 1991 His comedy "The Skin of Our Teeth" follows the Antrobus family of Excelsior, N.J.

The Sopranos 4x $333 avg J:2 DJ:1 FJ:1

J $200 2020 2004:When it came to this HBO series, Emmy did not fuhgeddaboud it

FJ 2019 So that viewers wouldn't think it was about opera, the "R" in this show's logo was turned into a gun

J $400 2022 2007:The Emmy mob honored Alan Taylor's directing for an episode involving asbestos disposal

The King and I 4x $450 avg J:2 DJ:2

DJ $200 1990 Prince Chulalongkorn becomes king at the end of this Rodgers & Hammerstein musical

DJ $800 2016 Anna Leonowens is half of the title duo of this Rodgers & Hammerstein show

J $400 2003 (Jimmy of the Clue Crew at the St. James Theatre in New York City) This musical that featured Yul Brynner's most regal performance premiered here at the St. James Theatre in 1951

The Crucible 4x $600 avg DJ:4

DJ $400 1990 In response to the Communist "witch hunts", Arthur Miller wrote this play about the Salem witch hunts

DJ $800 1996 This Arthur Miller play is based on the Salem witch trials of 1692

DJ $400 1989 This Arthur Miller play, set in the 17th c., was originally titled "Those Familiar Spirits"

San Francisco 4x 50.0% stumper $600 avg DJ:4

DJ $400 1996 "Angels in America" was premiered by this northern California city's Eureka Theatre Company

DJ $600 1995 William Ball founded the ACT in Pittsburgh in 1965 but moved it to this Northern California city in 1967

DJ $600 1988 Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life" is set in the waterfront district of this California city

Picnic 4x 75.0% stumper $1,350 avg DJ:4

DJ $800 1991 In 1962 William Inge reworked this Pulitzer Prize-winning play of his & called it "Summer Brave"

DJ $1,000 1995 This William Inge play was originally titled "Front Porch"

DJ $1,600 2025 On Labor Day, a young drifter arrives in a small Kansas town & disrupts the lives of the local ladies in this 1953 play

Peter Pan 4x $200 avg DJ:4

DJ $200 1993 Among the notables who have played this high-flying role are Cathy Rigby, Sandy Duncan & Mary Martin

DJ $200 1991 This J.M. Barrie play, subtitled "The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up", is produced every Christmas in London

DJ $200 1989 By the end of this J.M. Barrie play, Wendy flies so badly she has to use a broomstick

Oscar Wilde 4x $450 avg DJ:4

DJ $200 1998 In a 1997 play Stacie Chaiken starred as Constance, wife of this "Earnest" author

DJ $800 1994 Noel Coward turned this man's play "Lady Windermere's Fan" into a musical called "After the Ball"

DJ $400 2006 "De Profundis" was a letter he wrote while in Reading Gaol to Lord Alfred Douglas, with whom he'd had an affair

Moliere 4x $750 avg DJ:4

DJ $400 1995 The 1st version of his play "Tartuffe" presented for King Louis XIV in 1664, is lost

DJ $600 1985 French farce master who penned "Tartuffe" & "The Imaginary Invalid"

DJ $1,600 2003 He collapsed onstage in 1673 while playing the title role in his own play "The Imaginary Invalid", & died soon after

Hedda Gabler 4x $700 avg DJ:4

DJ $200 1999 It includes the foreshadowing line "Hedda darling--Don't touch those dangerous things!"

DJ $800 2010 The title character of this Ibsen play is revolted to discover she's pregnant & commits suicide with her father's pistol

DJ $1,000 DD 1995 In an Ibsen play this title character is married to George Tesman

Harvey 4x $500 avg DJ:4

DJ $200 1994 He's the six-foot-tall imaginary companion of Elwood P. Dowd

DJ $600 1988 It's the only Pulitzer Prize play with an invisible animal as the title character

DJ $400 1996 In this play Veta Simmons tries to get her brother Elwood P. Dowd committed to a sanitarium

Eliza Doolittle 4x $375 avg J:1 DJ:3

DJ $200 1989 Her 1st words in "Pygmalion" are "Nah then, Freddy: Look wh' y' gowin deah"

DJ $500 DD 1999 She says, "I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of sellin at the corner of Tottenham Court Road"

J $400 2017 In "Pygmalion" she eventually says she'll marry Freddy Hill, not Henry Higgins

Dallas 4x $550 avg J:1 DJ:3

J $200 2002 "Fall of the House of Ewing"

DJ $1,200 2024 In 1978 the oily J.R. Ewing arrived on CBS on this nighttime drama

DJ $400 2006 "Waterloo at Southfork"

Blithe Spirit 4x $850 avg DJ:4

DJ $800 1995 Charles Condomine is haunted by both his late wives in this Noel Coward farce

DJ $1,000 DD 1988 In this Noel Coward comedy, Madame Arcati uses I. Berlin's "Always" to go into a trance

DJ $800 1991 In Act III of this N. Coward play, Madame Arcati says, "What do you say we have another seance"

Wendy Wasserstein 4x 25.0% stumper $1,450 avg DJ:4

DJ $1,600 2007 In 1989 her "Heidi Chronicles" was the story of the night; sadly she passed away in 2006

DJ $1,000 1996 Frances McDormand, Jane Alexander & Madeline Kahn starred in her play "The Sisters Rosensweig"

DJ $1,600 2024 Her play "The Heidi Chronicles" won both a 1989 Tony & Pulitzer

Sophocles 4x 25.0% stumper $1,200 avg DJ:4

DJ $600 1988 1 of 2 Greek dramatists who electrified audiences with plays called "Electra" circa 413 B.C.

DJ $1,000 1993 This author of "Oedipus at Colonus" was born at Colonus around 496 B.C.

DJ $1,200 2008 This "Electra"fying playwright gets the credit for adding a third actor to Greek tragedies

August Strindberg 4x 75.0% stumper $1,250 avg DJ:4

DJ $1,000 1987 The literary hero of Eugene O'Neill was this Swedish playwright who wrote "Miss Julie"

DJ $1,000 1996 One critic called "A Streetcar Named Desire" a rewrite of this author's "Miss Julie"

DJ $1,000 1996 "The Dance of Death" may be this "Miss Julie" playwright's most depressing drama

Edward Albee 4x 50.0% stumper $1,000 avg DJ:4

DJ $400 2007 The Pulitzer folks gave "A Delicate Balance" by this playwright a 1967 "Woolf" whistle

DJ $600 1997 Uta Hagen was the first to play Martha in this playwright's"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

DJ $1,000 1995 He directed the original Broadway production of his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Seascape"

Worth Knowing (153)

Tom Stoppard 3 The West Wing 3 The Tempest 3 the Royal Shakespeare Company 3 The Frogs 3 Sweeney Todd 3 Star Trek 3 Stanislavsky 3 Rent 3 Peer Gynt 3 Paris 3 Our American Cousin 3 Night of the Iguana 3 New Orleans 3 Miss Saigon 3 London 3 Little House on the Prairie 3 Job 3 Japan 3 Inherit The Wind 3 Hamlet 3 Hair 3 Grand Guignol 3 Fiddler on the Roof 3 ER 3 Dylan Thomas 3 Driving Miss Daisy 3 Downton Abbey 3 David Mamet 3 commedia dell'arte 3 Cleopatra 3 Cats 3 Carousel 3 Caesar and Cleopatra 3 Cabaret 3 Bus Stop 3 Bonanza 3 Blanche DuBois 3 Bertolt Brecht 3 Athol Fugard 3 Annie Get Your Gun 3 Amadeus 3 Agatha Christie 3 12 Angry Men 3 The Taming of the Shrew 3 Yale 2 Woody Allen 2 William Tell 2 Upstairs, Downstairs 2 upstage 2 True Detective 2 tragedy 2 Tolstoy 2 To Kill A Mockingbird 2 Three Sisters 2 Thomas Becket 2 Thespis 2 The X-Files 2 The Waltons 2 The Twilight Zone 2 The Threepenny Opera 2 The Teahouse of the August Moon 2 The Odd Couple 2 The Children's Hour 2 The Cherry Orchard 2 the Bible 2 The Beggar's Opera 2 The Balcony 2 the Apollo 2 Sweden 2 Sunset Boulevard 2 Succession 2 Stephen Sondheim 2 Stage Door 2 Sleuth 2 Six Characters in Search of an Author 2 Show Boat 2 Sanskrit 2 Roses 2 Rhinoceros 2 rain 2 Pygmalion 2 Proof 2 Pirandello 2 P.T. Barnum 2 Ontario 2 Oklahoma! 2 Oh! Calcutta! 2 Oedipus Rex 2 Oedipus 2 Norway 2 Moss Hart 2 Miami Vice 2 Mephistopheles 2 Marilyn Monroe 2 Major Barbara 2 Mad Men 2 Macbeth 2 Lynn Fontanne 2 Lunt & Fontanne 2 Look Back in Anger 2 Long Day's Journey Into Night 2 Lenin 2 Kiss of the Spider Woman 2 Katharine Hepburn 2 Julianna Margulies 2 Judgment at Nuremberg 2 John Wilkes Booth 2 John Barrymore 2 Joan of Arc 2 I Remember Mama 2 Homeland 2 Henry Fonda 2 Helen 2 Gunsmoke 2 Grey's Anatomy 2 Greasepaint 2 Grauman's Chinese 2 Glenn Close 2 Glengarry Glen Ross 2 Gilbert & Sullivan 2 Funny Girl 2 France 2 Dynasty 2 Doubt 2 dog 2 Diane Keaton 2 deus ex machina 2 Crimes of the Heart 2 Christopher Marlowe 2 China Beach 2 Chaillot 2 Catherine the Great 2 Cagney & Lacey 2 Boston 2 Bill Cosby 2 Barbra Streisand 2 Auntie Mame 2 Arsenic and Old Lace 2 Aristophanes 2 Antigone 2 Angels in America 2 Alistair Cooke 2 a musical 2 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum 2 a flat 2 A Few Good Men 2 (Samuel) Beckett 2 the wings 2 the Moscow Art Theatre 2 The Sunshine Boys 2 The School for Scandal 2 The Phantom of the Opera 2

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