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Granville-Barker, Harley

(Encyclopedia)Granville-Barker, Harley, 1877–1946, English dramatist, actor, producer, and critic. As comanager of the Court Theatre from 1904 to 1907 he was an advocate and producer of “uncommercial” and exp...

Saint Petersburg, city, Russia

(Encyclopedia)Saint Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, Rus. Sankt-Peterburg, city (1990 est. pop. 5,036,000), capital of the Leningrad region (although not administratively part of it) and the administrative center of...

Baraka, Amiri

(Encyclopedia)Baraka, Amiri amērē bəräˈkə [key], 1934–2014, American poet, playwright, and political activist, b. Newark, N.J., as Everett LeRoy Jones, studied at Rutgers Univ., Howard Univ. In college he a...

Finnbogadóttir, Vigdís

(Encyclopedia)Finnbogadóttir, Vigdís vĭgˈdēs fĭnˌbōgədôˈtĭr [key], 1930–, Icelandic teacher and politician, president of Iceland (1980–96). She first became a public figure as the director of the Re...

Arrabal, Fernando

(Encyclopedia)Arrabal, Fernando fārnänˈdō äräbälˈ [key], 1932–, French playwright, b. Melilla, Morocco. He studied law in Madrid before moving to Paris in 1954. His plays, which reflect his abhorrence of ...

Stoker, Bram

(Encyclopedia)Stoker, Bram (Abraham Stoker), 1847–1912, English novelist, b. Dublin, Ireland. He is best remembered as the author of Dracula (1897), a horror story recounting the activities of the vampire Count D...

Talma, François Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Talma, François Joseph fräNswäˈ zhôzĕfˈ tälmäˈ [key], 1763–1826, French actor. The greatest tragedian of his time, he broke with tradition and foreshadowed the romanticists. He continued L...

Sharaku Toshusai

(Encyclopedia)Sharaku Toshusai shäˈräko͞o tōsho͝osīˈ [key], fl. 1794, Japanese artist. Extant sources indicate that he was either Saito Jurobei, a Noh dancer in the employ of the Daimyo of Awa, or that his ...

Sastre, Alfonso

(Encyclopedia)Sastre, Alfonso älfōnˈsō säˈstrā [key], 1926–, Spanish dramatist, essayist, and critic, b. Madrid. Approaching his work from a Marxist and existentialist point of view, he explores the proble...

Richardson, Sir Ralph

(Encyclopedia)Richardson, Sir Ralph, 1902–83, English stage and film actor. Since his first professional stage appearance in The Merchant of Venice (1921), Richardson has played a variety of classic and modern ro...