playwright

/ˌpleɪˈraɪt/

/ˈpleɪraɪt/

Other forms: playwrights

A playwright is someone who writes plays. Playwrights are also known as dramatists.

Just as a poet writes poems, a playwright writes plays. If the spelling of playwright looks odd, that's because wright is a word for a craftsperson or someone who builds things (like a shipwright builds ships). Given the juggling of characters, scenes, and plots in a play, you can see how writing a play is like building something. The most famous playwright ever in English is William Shakespeare.

Definitions of playwright

1. noun

   someone who writes plays
   synonyms: dramatist, dramaturge

   examples:

   Aeschylus

   Greek tragedian; the father of Greek tragic drama (525-456 BC)

   Edward Franklin Albeen

   United States dramatist (1928-)

   Maxwell Anderson

   United States dramatist (1888-1959)

   Jean Anouilh

   French dramatist noted for his reinterpretations of Greek myths (1910-1987)

   Aristophanes

   an ancient Greek dramatist remembered for his comedies (448-380 BC)

   Sir James Matthew Barrie

   Scottish dramatist and novelist; created Peter Pan (1860-1937)

   Francis Beaumont

   English dramatist who collaborated with John Fletcher (1584-1616)

   Samuel Beckett

   a playwright and novelist (born in Ireland) who lived in France; wrote plays for the theater of the absurd (1906-1989)

   Bertolt Brecht

   German dramatist and poet who developed a style of epic theater (1898-1956)

   Pedro Calderon de la Barca

   Spanish poet and dramatist considered one of the great Spanish writers (1600-1681)

   Karel Capek

   Czech writer who introduced the word `robot' into the English language (1890-1938)

   Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

   Spanish writer best remembered for `Don Quixote' which satirizes chivalry and influenced the development of the novel form (1547-1616)

   Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

   Russian dramatist whose plays are concerned with the difficulty of communication between people (1860-1904)

   William Congreve

   English playwright remembered for his comedies (1670-1729)

   Pierre Corneille

   French tragic dramatist whose plays treat grand moral themes in elegant verse (1606-1684)

   Sir Noel Pierce Coward

   English dramatist and actor and composer noted for his witty and sophisticated comedies (1899-1973)

   Russel Crouse

   United States playwright (1893-1966)

   Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac

   a French soldier and dramatist remembered chiefly for fighting many duels (often over the size of his nose); was immortalized in 1897 in a play by Edmond Rostand (1619-1655)

   Thomas Decker

   English dramatist and pamphleteer (1572-1632)

   John Dryden

   the outstanding poet and dramatist of the Restoration (1631-1700)

   Thomas Stearns Eliot

   British poet (born in the United States) who won the Nobel prize for literature; his plays are outstanding examples of modern verse drama (1888-1965)

   Euripides

   one of the greatest tragic dramatists of ancient Greece (480-406 BC)

   John Fletcher

   prolific English dramatist who collaborated with Francis Beaumont and many other dramatists (1579-1625)

   Christopher Fry

   English dramatist noted for his comic verse dramas (born 1907)

   Athol Fugard

   South African playwright whose plays feature the racial tensions in South Africa during apartheid (born in 1932)

   Frederico Garcia Lorca

   Spanish poet and dramatist who was shot dead by Franco's soldiers soon after the start of the Spanish Civil War (1898-1936)

   Jean Genet

   French writer of novels and dramas for the theater of the absurd (1910-1986)

   Andre Paul Guillaume Gide

   French author and dramatist who is regarded as the father of modern French literature (1869-1951)

   Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux

   French novelist and dramatist whose plays were reinterpretations of Greek myths (1882-1944)

   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

   German poet and novelist and dramatist who lived in Weimar (1749-1832)

   Carlo Goldoni

   prolific Italian dramatist (1707-1793)

   Harley Granville-Barker

   English actor and dramatist and critic and director noted for his productions of Shakespearean plays (1877-1946)

   Moss Hart

   United States playwright who collaborated with George S. Kaufman (1904-1961)

   Vaclav Havel

   Czech dramatist and statesman whose plays opposed totalitarianism and who served as president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992 and president of the Czech Republic since 1993 (born in 1936)

   Christian Friedrich Hebbel

   German dramatist (1813-1863)

   Lillian Hellman

   United States playwright; her plays were often indictments of injustice (1905-1984)

   Victor-Marie Hugo

   French poet and novelist and dramatist; leader of the romantic movement in France (1802-1885)

   Henrik Johan Ibsen

   realistic Norwegian author who wrote plays on social and political themes (1828-1906)

   William Inge

   United States playwright (1913-1973)

   Eugene Ionesco

   French dramatist (born in Romania) who was a leading exponent of the theater of the absurd (1912-1994)

   Benjamin Jonson

   English dramatist and poet who was the first real poet laureate of England (1572-1637)

   George Simon Kaufman

   United States playwright who collaborated with many other writers including Moss Hart (1889-1961)

   Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist

   German dramatist whose works concern people torn between reason and emotion (1777-1811)

   Thomas Kid

   English dramatist (1558-1594)

   Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

   German playwright and leader of the Enlightenment (1729-1781)

   Howard Lindsay

   United States playwright who collaborated with Russel Crouse on several musicals (1889-1931)

   Clare Booth Luce

   United States playwright and public official (1902-1987)

   Count Maurice Maeterlinck

   Belgian playwright (1862-1949)

   David Mamet

   United States playwright (born in 1947)

   Christopher Marlowe

   English poet and playwright who introduced blank verse as a form of dramatic expression; was stabbed to death in a tavern brawl (1564-1593)

   John Marstan

   English playwright (1575-1634)

   Menander

   comic dramatist of ancient Greece (342-292 BC)

   Thomas Middleton

   English playwright and pamphleteer (1570-1627)

   Arthur Miller

   United States playwright (1915-2005)

   Jean-Baptiste Poquelin

   French author of sophisticated comedies (1622-1673)

   Ferenc Molnar

   Hungarian playwright (1878-1952)

   Sean O'Casey

   Irish playwright (1880-1964)

   Clifford Odets

   United States playwright (1906-1963)

   Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

   United States playwright (1888-1953)

   John James Osborne

   English playwright (1929-1994)

   Harold Pinter

   English dramatist whose plays are characterized by silences and the use of inaction (born in 1930)

   Luigi Pirandello

   Italian novelist and playwright (1867-1936)

   George Dibdin Pitt

   a British playwright who created the fictional character Sweeney Todd (1799-1855)

   Titus Maccius Plautus

   comic dramatist of ancient Rome (253?-184 BC)

   Jean Baptiste Racine

   French advocate of Jansenism; tragedian who based his works on Greek and Roman themes (1639-1699)

   Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan

   British playwright (1911-1977)

   Elmer Leopold Rice

   United States playwright (1892-1967)

   Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson

   Irish playwright and theater manager in Dublin (1886-1958)

   Edmond Rostand

   French dramatist and poet whose play immortalized Cyrano de Bergerac (1868-1918)

   Jean-Paul Sartre

   French writer and existentialist philosopher (1905-1980)

   Augustin Eugene Scribe

   French playwright (1791-1861)

   Lucius Annaeus Seneca

   Roman statesman and philosopher who was an advisor to Nero; his nine extant tragedies are modeled on Greek tragedies (circa 4 BC - 65 AD)

   William Shakespeare

   English poet and dramatist considered one of the greatest English writers (1564-1616)

   George Bernard Shaw

   British playwright (born in Ireland); founder of the Fabian Society (1856-1950)

   Sam Shepard

   United States author of surrealistic allegorical plays (born in 1943)

   Richard Brinsley Sheridan

   Irish playwright remembered for his satirical comedies of manners (1751-1816)

   Robert Emmet Sherwood

   United States playwright (1896-1955)

   Marvin Neil Simon

   United States playwright noted for light comedies (born in 1927)

   Sophocles

   one of the great tragedians of ancient Greece (496-406 BC)

   Thomas Straussler

   British dramatist (born in Czechoslovakia in 1937)

   Johan August Strindberg

   Swedish dramatist and novelist (1849-1912)

   Edmund John Millington Synge

   Irish poet and playwright whose plays are based on rural Irish life (1871-1909)

   Publius Terentius Afer

   dramatist of ancient Rome (born in Greece) whose comedies were based on works by Menander (190?-159 BC)

   Tirso de Molina

   Spanish dramatist who wrote the first dramatic treatment of the legend of Don Juan (1571-1648)

   Peter Alexander Ustinov

   British actor and playwright (1921-2004)

   Lope Felix de Vega Carpio

   prolific Spanish playwright (1562-1635)

   John Webster

   English playwright (1580-1625)

   Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

   Irish writer and wit (1854-1900)

   Thornton Niven Wilder

   United States writer and dramatist (1897-1975)

   Thomas Lanier Williams

   United States playwright (1911-1983)

   William Wycherley

   English playwright noted for his humorous and satirical plays (1640-1716)

   William Butler Yeats

   Irish poet and dramatist (1865-1939)

   type of:

   author, writer

   a person who writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay)