[Playwright] Biographies & Profiles
Andy Samberg
Andy Samberg is an American comedian, actor, musician, writer and producer. He is a member of The Lonely Island comedy music group alongside friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, and he was a cast member and writer for NBC's Saturday Night Live from 2005-2012, where he and his group members popularized SNL Digital Shorts. Samberg has acted in numerous films including Hot Rod, Space Chimps, I Love You, Man, the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania film series, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Storks, Palm Springs, America: The Motion Picture, and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. From 2013 to 2021, he starred as Jake Peralta in the Fox, and later NBC, police sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2013.
Chadwick Boseman
Chadwick Aaron Boseman was an American actor who received multiple accolades during his two-decade career, including two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and an Academy Award nomination. He began his career in theatre, winning Drama League Directing and Acting awards, and transitioned to the screen with his breakthrough performance as Jackie Robinson in the 2013 biographical film 42. He achieved international fame for playing the Marvel Comics superhero Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for which he won an NAACP Image Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and posthumously a Primetime Emmy Award. Boseman kept his 2016 colon cancer diagnosis private and continued to act until his death in 2020. His last film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was released posthumously to critical acclaim, earning him his final Academy Award nomination and Golden Globe Award.
Lisa Edelstein
Lisa Edelstein is an American actress who is best known for playing Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the Fox medical drama series House, M.D., Abby McCarthy in the Bravo series Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce, Mercy Graves in the DC Animated Universe, and Kya in The Legend of Korra.
Evan Adams
Evan Tlesla Adams is an Indigenous Canadian actor, playwright, and physician from the Sliammon First Nation near Powell River, British Columbia. He is best known for his roles in the films of Sherman Alexie, such as Thomas Builds-the-Fire in Smoke Signals (1998) and Seymour Polatkin in The Business of Fancydancing (2002).
Lennie James
James is also an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter, having written two episodes of Doctor Who, two episodes of Wild Bill, and one episode of Law & Order: UK. His play, Small Hours, received the Primo Terra Award at the 2009 Milan Theatre Festival. Lennie James is a British actor, screenwriter, and playwright. He is best known for his roles in The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead and Line of Duty. James also starred in the medical drama Critical on Sky 1, Jericho on CBS, and Low Winter Sun on AMC. He wrote and starred in the Sky Atlantic drama series Save Me, which won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Drama Series 2021. James has also written episodes of Doctor Who, Wild Bill, and Law & Order: UK. His play, Small Hours, received the Primo Terra Award at the 2009 Milan Theatre Festival.
Harvey Fierstein
Harvey Fierstein is an American actor, playwright and screenwriter, most famous for his Tony Award-winning work in Torch Song Trilogy and Hairspray. He also won Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical for La Cage aux Folles and Best Actor in a Musical for Hairspray. Fierstein has also written the books for Tony Award-winning musicals Kinky Boots, Newsies and A Catered Affair. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2007, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role on Cheers.
Mae West
Mae West was a multi-faceted American performer whose career over seven decades spanned vaudeville, stage, film, radio, television and music. Known for her bawdy sense of humour and husky voice, West encountered problems with censorship but continued to make comedy out of the status quo. Despite her film career ending in the 1930s, she wrote books and plays, performed in Las Vegas and the UK, recorded rock 'n roll albums, and in 1999 was voted 15th greatest female screen legend of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was a highly prolific writer, poet, social activist and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He was one of the earliest innovators of jazz poetry and well-known for his contributions to the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes attended high school in Cleveland, Ohio and studied at Columbia University, although he didn't complete his studies. He later graduated from Lincoln University and wrote plays, short stories, poetry and nonfiction works during the civil rights movement. His famous phrase "when Harlem was in vogue" popularized his name in the creative community, while his weekly column in The Chicago Defender kept readers up to date on civil rights progress.
Robert Anderson (playwright)
Robert Woodruff Anderson was an acclaimed American playwright, screenwriter, and theatrical producer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Writing; one for his screenplay for the drama film The Nun's Story and the other for I Never Sang for My Father, an adaptation of his play. Anderson is well-known for his successful plays and movies, which were almost always centered around family relationships. His works often explored the struggles of aging, death, and grief. His notable works include All Summer Long, Control and Tea and Sympathy.
John Murray (playwright)
John Murray was an American playwright best known for the 1937 Broadway play Room Service, which was later adapted into two films starring the Marx Brothers and Frank Sinatra, as well as two television productions. After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School, City College of New York, and Columbia University, he served in the US Army during World War II, marrying Joan Loewi in 1941, before continuing his writing career for Broadway, radio shows, and eventually television, also writing songs and sketches for the Ziegfeld Follies and Alive and Kicking.
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, or Molière, was a French playwright, actor, and poet widely considered one of the greatest writers in French language and world literature. He was born into a prosperous family and began his theatrical career as an itinerant actor before securing a command performance before the King in the Louvre with a classic Pierre Corneille drama followed by one of his own farces. This royal favour granted his troupe the use of a theatre in the Palais-Royal and the title Troupe du Roi, as well as a royal pension. His satirical works like Tartuffe and Don Juan garnered criticism from some circles, yet he continued as the official author of court entertainments until 1673 when he collapsed during a production of The Imaginary Invalid and died a few hours later.
Renée Taylor
Renée Adorée Taylor is an American actress, screenwriter, playwright, producer, and director. She is best known for her role as Sylvia Fine in the sitcom The Nanny, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award. Taylor received an Academy Award nomination for co-writing the screenplay for the film Lovers and Other Strangers. She has also written, produced, and directed stage plays and films, and appeared in television series and films such as 30 Rock and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Taylor is an advocate for the rights of senior citizens and she founded the Silver Grit Foundation, which provides workshops and classes designed to help seniors stay active and involved in the arts.
Tom Lanoye
Tom Lanoye is a Belgian author born on August 27, 1958 in Sint Niklaas. He is renowned for his various works of poetry, novels, columns, screenplays and plays. He is highly acclaimed and read widely in his language area. Additionally, he makes frequent appearances at European theatre festivals. Lanoye has received numerous awards, such as the Poetry International Award in 2009, the Constantijn Huygens Prize in 2006, and the Flemish Culture Award in 2002.
Dwight Taylor (writer)
Dwight Oliver Taylor was an American author, playwright, and film/television screenwriter.
Fred Melamed
Fred Melamed is a renowned American actor, comedian, and writer best known for his roles in the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man, Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, and Crimes and Misdemeanors films, as well as In A World..., Hail, Caesar!, Shiva Baby, Lady Dynamite, Adventure Time, WandaVision and Barry. Vulture has named him one of the greatest character actors working today.
Gerrit Komrij
Gerrit Jan Komrij was a Dutch poet, novelist, translator, critic, polemic journalist and playwright who rose to prominence in the early 1970s. Throughout his career he was widely renowned for his acerbic essays and columns, was awarded the highest literary awards including the P. C. Hooft Award, and from 2000 to 2004 served as the Dutch Dichter des Vaderlands. He notably had a formative influence on Dutch literature through his anthologies of poetry from the 17th-20th centuries, as well as Afrikaans poetry and children's poetry. Komrij died in 2012 at age 68.
Frederick Combs
Frederick Combs was an American actor, playwright and director, best known for originating the role of Donald in the play and movie The Boys in the Band. He also acted in theatre, Broadway and toured with plays, including Franco Zeffirelli's The Lady of the Camellias and Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey. He sadly passed away in Los Angeles in 1992 from an AIDS-related illness at the age of 56.
Václav Kliment Klicpera
Václav Kliment Klicpera was a Czech playwright, writer, and poet, who was born in Chlumec nad Cidlinou. After his studies in Prague in 1813 and 1818, he became a professor at Hradec Králové in 1819 and schoolmaster of a Prague gymnasium in 1850. He was renowned for his chivalric plays and patriotically-themed historical dramas that formed the basis of modern Czech drama, as well as his farces and fairy tale motifs. Klicpera's support for the growth of Czech theatre is remembered through the Klicpera's theatre edition of published plays. Klicpera passed away in Prague and is buried in Olšany Cemetery.
Denman Thompson
Henry Denman Thompson was an American playwright and theatre actor, best known for his play, The Strange Case of Mary Page. Born in 1875 in Pennsylvania, he began his career in theatre as an assistant stage director at the Garrick Theatre in New York City. He wrote several successful plays during his lifetime, including All the King’s Men (1913), The Man from Berlin (1914), and The Strange Case of Mary Page (1915). Thompson was also an actor in productions of his plays, and in other theatre roles. After a successful career, he passed away in 1936 in New York City. Thompson was a respected figure in the theatre world, respected for his writing and for his contributions to the craft of theatre.
Franco D'Alessandro
Franco D'Alessandro is a prolific playwright, poet, author and educator from New York. His Off-Broadway hit play Roman Nights has been a success both in New York and London, and has been touring the world for 20 years. Productions of the play have been seen in 8 languages across 11 countries on four continents. It has also been nominated for and/or received awards globally. In the mid 1990s, he had eight one-act plays produced Off-Off Broadway. In total, he has had 22 international, Off-Broadway and regional productions of his work.
James Forbes (screenwriter)
James Forbes was a Canadian playwright who worked as a Hollywood film screenwriter. The Chorus Lady and The Famous Mrs. Fair were his best known plays.
Ivan Kotlyarevsky
Ivan Petrovych Kotliarevsky was a Ukrainian writer, poet and playwright, social activist, regarded as the pioneer of modern Ukrainian literature. Kotliarevsky was a veteran of the Russo-Turkish War.
Gwen Meredith
Gwenyth Valmai Meredith OBE was an Australian writer, dramatist, playwright and radio writer. She gained huge success with her radio serials, The Lawsons and Blue Hills, the latter of which ran for almost 25 years. Gwenyth was awarded an OBE in 1979 in recognition of her contribution to the Australian arts and media. She was also the first Australian writer to win the Companion of the Order of Australia. Gwenyth's writing career spanned over four decades, with her most famous works being her radio serials. Her work has been recognised internationally, earning her praise for its witty dialogue and captivating storylines.
