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All About Tom Stoppard Trivia Quiz

How much do you know about England's most popular contemporary playwright?

A multiple-choice quiz by evenlater. Estimated time: 5 mins.

Author
evenlater

Time
5 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
237,255

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Tough

Avg Score
5 / 10

Plays
215

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. Tom Stoppard was born Tomas Straussler in Czechoslovakia. His family fled the country to escape the Nazi occupation. What country did they flee to initially? Hint

Singapore

Great Britian

India

United States

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Question 2 of 10

2. Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing," was dedicated to his second wife, Miriam. In that play, the semi-autobiographical character Henry Boot, a playwright, leaves his first wife for an actress named Annie. Not long after the play debuted, Stoppard left his second wife for the actress who played Annie. Who was that actress? Hint

Diana Rigg

Felicity Kendal

Glenn Close

Jennifer Ehle

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Question 3 of 10

3. Tom Stoppard's first marriage to Josie Ingle, ended in divorce in part because Josie was unable to adjust to Tom's burgeoning fame. His second wife, Dr. Miriam Stoppard, had no such difficulty. In fact, she may have been even more famous among the British than Tom. What was her area of expertise? Hint

sex

literature

psychology

cancer

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Question 4 of 10

4. Tom Stoppard won the Academy Award in 1998 for "Shakespeare in Love." It was his second nomination. For what movie did he receive his first nomination? Hint

Brazil

Vatel

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Empire of the Sun

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Question 5 of 10

5. Tom Stoppard's Oscar success in 1998 put him in elite company, joining which of the following playwrights as a screenwriting Oscar winner? Hint

John Guare

Tony Kushner

Arthur Miller

George Bernard Shaw

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Question 6 of 10

6. Tom Stoppard's Czech origins have been a significant influence on his writing. Which of the following plays was NOT set (at least in part) in Czechoslovakia? Hint

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

Professional Foul

Rock 'N' Roll

The Coast of Utopia

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Question 7 of 10

7. In addition to his original works, Tom Stoppard has also translated/adapted several foreign language plays. The original cast for one of these adaptations featured Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, John Goodman, Christopher Walken and Marcia Gay Harden. What was the name of the play? Hint

"Henry IV" by Luigi Pirandello

"Galileo" by Bertolt Brecht

"Largo Desolato" by Vaclav Havel

"The Seagull" by Anton Chekov

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Question 8 of 10

8. Tom Stoppard began his writing career as a ... Hint

novelist

journalist

poet

theater critic

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Question 9 of 10

9. Though Tom Stoppard was criticized early in his career as an apolitical writer, politics became a major theme of several later works. Which of the following world leaders has NOT appeared as a character in an original Stoppard work? Hint

Soviet Chairman Vladimir Lenin

Czech President Vaclav Havel

Polish President Lech Walesa

Kambawe President Ginku Mageeba

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Question 10 of 10

10. Early in Tom Stoppard's career, he felt uncomfortable writing plots. He got around this weakness by borrowing plots from other works. Stoppard has borrowed plots from all of the following works except ... Hint

"The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde

"Mouse Trap" by Agatha Christie

"Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

"Ulysses" by James Joyce

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Tom Stoppard was born Tomas Straussler in Czechoslovakia. His family fled the country to escape the Nazi occupation. What country did they flee to initially?

Answer: Singapore

Stoppard's father was killed in Singapore by the Japanese as Tom and his mother escaped to India. Once there, his mother married a British soldier named Kenneth Stoppard. They moved to England when Stoppard was still a boy.

Answer: Felicity Kendal

Kendal played Annie in the original London production. She also played the leads in the debut performances of "Hapgood", "Arcadia", and "Indian Ink". Glenn Close played Annie when "The Real Thing" moved to New York in 1984. Jennifer Ehle played Annie in the 1999 New York revival. Diana Rigg was leading lady in several earlier Stoppard productions including "Jumpers" and "Night and Day."

Answer: sex

Some have called Miriam Stoppard England's Dr. Ruth.

4. Tom Stoppard won the Academy Award in 1998 for "Shakespeare in Love." It was his second nomination. For what movie did he receive his first nomination?

Answer: Brazil

Stoppard wrote the screenplay for all four movies. "Brazil," a darkly comic retro/sci-fi tale about a low-level bureaucrat entangled in a terrorist plot, lost to "Witness" in 1985. It was co-written with Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown. "Shakespeare in Love" was co-written with Marc Norman.

5. Tom Stoppard's Oscar success in 1998 put him in elite company, joining which of the following playwrights as a screenwriting Oscar winner?

Answer: George Bernard Shaw

Shaw won for "Pygmalion" in 1938. Guare was nominated for "Atlantic City" in 1980, Miller for "The Crucible" in 1996 and Kushner for "Munich" in 2005.

6. Tom Stoppard's Czech origins have been a significant influence on his writing. Which of the following plays was NOT set (at least in part) in Czechoslovakia?

Answer: The Coast of Utopia

"The Coast of Utopia" was a trilogy of plays about the development of Russian socialism. "EGBDF" was about a Czech dissident institutionalized in a mental hospital for political reasons. "Rock 'N' Roll" told the story of the Czech Republic's Velvet Revolution through the eyes of a pop music enthusiast.

The television play "Professional Foul" was about a British ethics professor who gets embroiled in a human rights controversy while attending a professional conference in Czechoslovakia.

Answer: "The Seagull" by Anton Chekov

"The Seagull" was performed for free in New York's Central Park in 2001. It was directed by Mike Nichols.

8. Tom Stoppard began his writing career as a ...

Answer: journalist

He was a journalist first, then a theater critic, then a novelist, then a playwright, and later a screenwriter. He hasn't dabbled much with poetry, aside from a few verses in the play "Indian Ink", which was about a fictional poet named Flora Crewe.

Answer: Czech President Vaclav Havel

Havel, a good friend of Stoppard's, is an offstage figure in "Rock 'N' Roll." Walesa is a character in the television play "Squaring the Circle." Lenin appears in "Travesties." Mageeba is a fictional president of a fictional African country in "Night and Day."

Answer: "Ulysses" by James Joyce

Though Joyce was a character in "Travesties", its plot was largely derived from "The Importance of Being Earnest". Stoppard's first hit, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" owes its plot to "Hamlet". The one act "The Real Inspector Hound" was a parody of "The Mousetrap".

Source: Author evenlater

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Exit10 before going online.
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