Famous Playwrights Trivia Quiz

Answer: William Shakespeare

Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 1564 and died there in 1616. 'The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark' is Shakespeare's longest play and deals with the tortured prince's failure to avenge his father's murder. The play is thought to have been written between 1599 and 1601 to be performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company partly owned by Shakespeare.

Answer: Henrik Ibsen

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen is considered to be the father of modernism. He wrote 'Hedda Gabler' whilst living in Germany and it was first performed in Munich in 1891. Recently married but bored by her husband, Hedda destroys the life of his academic rival, who is also her former lover. The play ends with her suicide.

Answer: George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw lived from 1856-1950 and was Irish. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. 'Pygmalion', his most popular play, was first performed in German in Vienna in 1913, receiving its English premiere the following year. Based on a Greek myth, it shows the transformation of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle into "a lady".

It was filmed in 1938, winning Shaw an Oscar for the screenplay, and was the basis for the musical 'My Fair Lady'.

Answer: Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello was born in Sicily in 1867 and died in Rome in 1936. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. His absurdist play 'Six Characters in Search of an Author' was first performed in Rome in 1921 and in English in 1922 in London.

In it actors rehearsing a play by Pirandello are interrupted by strangers who explain that they are characters looking for an author to finish their story.

Answer: Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht lived from 1898-1956 and was German. He was particularly associated with epic theatre and the alienation effect. Based largely on a translation of 'The Beggar's Opera' by John Gay, 'The Threepenny Opera' opened in Berlin in 1928 with lyrics by Brecht and music by Kurt Weill. Forced to leave Nazi Germany in 1933, Brecht settled eventually in the USA, leaving in 1947 after testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

He died in East Berlin, where he had founded the Berliner Ensemble.

Answer: Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller was an American playwright who lived from 1915 until 2005. 'Death of a Salesman' is a tragedy, telling the story of failing salesman Willy Loman through a mixture of arguments, dreams and memories. Its initial Broadway production in 1949 won Miller both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and that year's Tony Award for Best Play.

Answer: Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett was born in Ireland but spent much of his life in France. He was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature. Originally written in French, 'Waiting for Godot' ('En attendant Godot') was first performed in Paris in 1953. The English version, translated by Beckett and subtitled "a tragicomedy in two acts", received its premiere in London two years later.

The play centres around Vladimir and Estragon, two characters who have fallen on hard times. Godot never appears.

Answer: Eugene O'Neill

Eugene O'Neill was born in New York in 1888 and died in Boston in 1953. A pioneer of American realist drama he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936. 'Long Day's Journey into Night', a semi-autobiographical tragedy depicting one day in the life of the theatrical Tyrone family, is considered to be O'Neill's greatest play.

It was first performed in Sweden and then in America in 1956, although O'Neill had left instructions that it should not be published until 25 years after his death.

It won O'Neill his fourth Pulitzer prize.

Answer: Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, who was born in 1930 and died in 2008, was English. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. 'The Caretaker', first performed in London in 1960, was Pinter's first major theatrical success. Davies, an argumentative and manipulative tramp, is taken in by brothers Aston and Mick to act as their caretaker, but is eventually asked to leave. Typical of Pinter's work, the play is characterised by an atmosphere of implicit threat and the use of colloquial dialogue with long pauses.

Answer: Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard was born as Tomas Straussler in 1937 in what was then Czechoslovakia and came to Britain as a child. Stoppard's first success, 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead' is an absurdist tragicomedy, seeing the events of 'Hamlet' through the eyes of two of the play's minor characters.

The play was first performed in 1966 by a student cast at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It opened in London in 1967, before transferring to Broadway, where it ran for a year and won the Tony Award for Best Play.