All the World’s a Stage With This Famous Playwrights Quiz

Playwright, screenwriter, and director Aaron Sorkin (of “West Wing” and “The Social Network” fame) turned Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 novel into a Tony Award-winning play. The show opened on Broadway in 2018 to much excitement, and while critics had mixed feelings about the “To Kill a Mockingbird” adaptation, it was a box office smash.

Since their introduction in 1949, Junior Mints have been meant for theatergoers. In fact, they were named after a popular Broadway show co-written by playwrights Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields, called "Junior Miss." Broadway's lights had long since dimmed on the once-famous show when Junior Mints hit candy aisles, but the tiny mint drops have now been a mainstay for more than 70 years.

There are some 500 movies that give William Shakespeare a writing credit, but it's near impossible to count how many filmmakers have done full or partial adaptations of his plays, never mind those who have simply drawn inspiration from the Bard. His influence on film dates back to 1899, when four minutes of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's stage production of "King John" were recorded and screened for audiences at the Palace Theatre in London.

In 1876, Oscar Wilde went on his first date with a famously beautiful and witty Dublin socialite, Florence Balcombe. Wilde became infatuated and gifted her with a gold cross engraved with his name, considered a prelude to marriage. However, Wilde left to study at Oxford, and without a formal engagement, their relationship faltered. Balcombe later met Bram Stoker, and the two were married until the "Dracula" author's death in 1912.

The son of Shakespearean actor James O’Neill, Eugene O’Neill was born in a hotel on Broadway in New York City in 1888. For the first seven years of his life, he toured with his father’s theater company. After writing and producing a series of one-act plays, O’Neill achieved success with his 1920 play “Beyond the Horizon,” which won the Pulitzer Prize. He went on to win two more Pulitzers as well as the Nobel Prize in literature in 1936.

The oldest-surviving ancient Greek play is Aeschylus' "The Persians," which focuses on the defeat of the Persian king Xerxes' navy at Salamis. The work is actually the middle play of a trilogy, but the other two parts have been lost to history. "The Persians" is one of only a very few Greek plays focused on contemporary events rather than ancient Greece's colorful pantheon of gods.

Known best for his only novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," Oscar Wilde also wrote well-known comedic plays such as "Lady Windermere's Fan" and "The Problem With Being Earnest." But "Salome" was a step too far for British sensibilities. The one-act play was banned in England for depicting biblical characters such as the titular Salome and John the Baptist.

Known for transforming American theater into a serious literary medium, Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) is best known for works such as "The Iceman Cometh," "The Hairy Ape," and "Long Day's Journey Into Night." O'Neill remains the only American playwright to ever receive the Nobel Prize for literature, and one of the most famous theaters on Broadway is named in his honor.

Many of Hollywood's hits come from the stage. "Amadeus" is a play by Peter Shaffer; the 1999 teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You" drew on Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" for inspiration; and 1992’s "A Few Good Men" was based on a 1989 play by playwright and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin’s 2010 biographical drama "The Social Network," however, was a direct-to-film affair.

Of his 37 plays that have survived to modernity, "The Tempest" is widely regarded (though it's hard to be 100% certain) as William Shakespeare's last play that he wrote by himself. (His actual last play, co-written with fellow English playwright John Fletcher, is "The Two Noble Kinsmen.") Scholars believe the parting words of Prospero, the old magician in "The Tempest," serve as Shakespeare's own farewell.

Tony Kushner made history in 1994, when he won his second consecutive Tony Award for Best Play. His first was for part one of his two-part masterwork "Angels in America," which won both the Tony for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1993. Part two, subtitled "Perestroika," was similarly acclaimed, picking up Tonys, Drama Desk Awards, and New York Critics' Circle Awards in 1994.

The four most well-known playwrights of ancient Greece are Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes. (The latter was known for comedy, while the other three were acclaimed tragedians.) Thales of Miletus, meanwhile, was a mathematician and philosopher.

Most people know Agatha Christie for her popular mystery novels, such as "Murder on the Orient Express" and "Death on the Nile." However, they're far from her only claims to fame. Among other things, Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, "The Mousetrap," which began as a radio play called "Three Blind Mice" in 1947 and moved to London's West End in 1952, where it ran continuously until March 2020, reopening in 2021.

August Wilson's "Pittsburgh Cycle," also called "The American Century Cycle," is a collection of 10 plays, each taking place in a different decade of the 20th century. All but one of the plays takes place in Pittsburgh's Hill District neighborhood, where Wilson grew up, and although there's no real through line linking the plots of the various plays, there are recurring characters.

Anton Chekhov is as well known for the influential dramatic principle that bears his name — Chekhov's gun — as he is for plays such as "Uncle Vanya" and "The Seagull." The idea behind Chekhov's gun is that authors and playwrights should only draw attention to details and elements that are relevant to the story. For example, if you put a gun on the wall in the first act, it must go off at some point later in the play.

Thomas Lanier Williams III — better known by his pen name, Tennessee Williams — was born in Columbus, Mississippi, and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. But it was New Orleans that inspired his first Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "A Streetcar Named Desire," which opened on Broadway in 1947. Williams moved to the Big Easy in his 20s, and although he hopped from city to city throughout the rest of his life, NOLA left its mark on him — and vice versa. The city now hosts an annual festival in his honor.

Although she died at just 34 years old, Lorraine Hansberry left a lasting mark on American theater. Her most famous work, "A Raisin in the Sun," was the first play by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway, and made her the first Black recipient — and youngest American winner — of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. It has been adapted for the screen multiple times, most memorably with Sidney Poitier in 1961.

Christopher Marlowe's playwriting career was tragically cut short on May 30, 1593, when he was killed over a bar tab. But during his short six-year career, Marlowe and his work influenced Shakepeare's "The Merchant of Venice" and many of his historical plays, including "Richard II," "Henry IV," and "Henry V." When it comes to Elizabethan drama, Marlowe is still considered second only to the Bard himself.

On June 29, 1956, Hollywood superstar Marilyn Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller, whom she had met and befriended a few years earlier. The two worked together on her final film, "The Misfits," but problems both on set and at home led to their divorce in 1961. A giant of American theater even before their high-profile union, Miller is known for plays including "The Crucible," "All My Sons," and "Death of a Salesman," the latter of which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1949.

A tragicomedy in two acts, "Waiting for Godot" is arguably Irish playwright Samuel Beckett's most famous work. In the play, two characters — Vladimir and Estragon — wait for the titular and mysterious Godot, who continually sends word of his impending arrival but ultimately never arrives. The play is open to interpretation but is thought to be an exploration of human existence and the purpose of life.