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Black Swan Theatre Company
Black Swan Theatre Company, also known as Black Swan State Theatre Company, is Western Australia's state theater company, founded in Perth in 1991 and resident at the State Theatre Centre.
Blackface
Blackface, also known as blackface minstrelsy, is theatrical makeup in which performers darken their faces with burnt cork to caricature Black people, flourishing in 19th-century America.
Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois, protagonist of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), is a fading Southern belle, ex-English teacher, and sister of Stella Kowalski, created on Broadway by Jessica Tandy and played on film by Vivien Leigh.
Blasted
Blasted is the first full-length play by British playwright Sarah Kane, premiered at London's Royal Court Theatre in 1995 and now a defining work of in-yer-face theater.
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is Noël Coward's 1941 three-act farce, subtitled An Improbable Farce, in which a séance summons novelist Charles Condomine's dead first wife Elvira; premiered at the Piccadilly Theatre and adapted to film by David Lean in 1945.
Blood Wedding
Blood Wedding (Bodas de sangre) is Federico García Lorca's tragedy in three acts, written 1932, premiered Madrid 1933, based on the 1928 Níjar murders, first of his rural trilogy.
Blue Collar Comedy Tour
Blue Collar Comedy Tour: 2000–2006 American package tour starring Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Larry the Cable Guy; redneck-themed stand-up that grossed over $16.6 million and spawned three films and Blue Collar TV.
Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group is a New York-created theatrical show and company founded by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman, and Phil Stanton: three mute, bald, cobalt-blue performers mixing percussion, paint, comedy, and audience participation. Opened at the Astor Place Theatre in 1991, acquired by Cirque du Soleil in 2017, with recent closures in New York, Chicago, and Boston.
Bo Burnham
Bo Burnham (Robert Pickering Burnham, born 1990) is an American comedian, musician, and filmmaker who rose from teenage YouTube song parodies to stand-up specials like Make Happy, the film Eighth Grade (2018), and the Emmy-winning Netflix special Inside (2021).
Bob Baker Marionette Theater
Bob Baker Marionette Theater, founded 1963 by Bob Baker and Alton Wood, is the longest-running live puppet theater in the United States, a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument now in Highland Park with over 4,000 handcrafted marionettes.
Bob Elliott (comedian)
Bob Elliott (Robert Brackett Elliott, 1923-2016), American comedian and actor, half of the deadpan radio and TV satire duo Bob and Ray with Ray Goulding; creator of Wally Ballou and Biff Burns, Piels Beer pitchman, father of Chris Elliott.
Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse (1927–1987), American choreographer and director of Chicago, Cabaret, and Pippin; creator of a signature jazz style with bowler hats, turned-in knees, and finger snaps; won Oscar, Tony, and Emmy in 1973.
Bob Monkhouse
Bob Monkhouse (1928–2003), English comedian, writer and game-show host of The Golden Shot, Celebrity Squares and Family Fortunes; also gag writer for Bob Hope and author of Crying with Laughter.
Bob Mortimer
Bob Mortimer (Robert Renwick Mortimer, born 1959), English comedian and writer, half of Vic and Bob, ex-solicitor; works include Shooting Stars, Gone Fishing, Last One Laughing UK, and The Satsuma Complex.
Bob Newhart
Bob Newhart, born George Robert Newhart, was an American comedian and actor whose deadpan telephone routines led to sitcom stardom in The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart.
Bob Saget
Bob Saget (Robert Lane Saget, 1956–2022), American comedian, actor, and host; Danny Tanner on Full House and Fuller House, original America's Funniest Home Videos host, How I Met Your Mother narrator, blue stand-up comic; died January 9, 2022, in Orlando from an accidental head injury.
Bob the Drag Queen
Bob the Drag Queen (Caldwell Tidicue, also Christopher Caldwell) is a nonbinary American comedian, actor, author, and producer; winner of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 8 (2016), co-host of We're Here and the Sibling Rivalry podcast, NYT-bestselling author of Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert, and founder of Purse First Studios.
Bob Zmuda
Bob Zmuda (born 1949, Chicago) is an American comedy writer and producer, Andy Kaufman's closest collaborator, performer of Tony Clifton, author of Andy Kaufman Revealed, and creator of Comic Relief, which raised over $60 million.
Bobby Ball
Bobby Ball (Robert Harper, 1944–2020), English comedian and half of Cannon and Ball with Tommy Cannon; ITV show 1979–1988, catchphrase "Rock on, Tommy!", later Frank in Not Going Out.
Bobcat Goldthwait
Bobcat Goldthwait (Robert Francis Goldthwait, born 1962, Syracuse, New York) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and film director known for his screeching 1980s persona, Zed in Police Academy, and directing Shakes the Clown and World's Greatest Dad.
Boca de Ouro
Boca de Ouro (Gold Mouth) is a 1959 three-act play by the Brazilian playwright Nelson Rodrigues, set in the gambling underworld of Rio's Madureira suburb.
Boesman and Lena
Boesman and Lena is a two-act play by the South African playwright Athol Fugard, first performed in 1969, about a Coloured couple left homeless when their shanty town is bulldozed.
Bohdan Stupka
Bohdan Stupka (Богдан Ступка; 1941–2012) was a Ukrainian stage and film actor who served as Minister of Culture and Arts and led Kyiv's Ivan Franko Theater.
Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Ballet, founded 1776 in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theatre, is the world's largest ballet company by dancer count, known for virtuosic style, its own academy, the 1959 US debut, and state control from the tsars to Gergiev.
Bones (drag queen)
Bones (@itsjustbones) is an English drag performer from Soho, London, called the 'queen of Soho', winner of RuPaul's Drag Race UK series 7 in 2025 with three maxi-challenge wins.
Bonnie McFarlane
Bonnie McFarlane, Canadian-American stand-up comedian from Cold Lake, Alberta; Last Comic Standing season 2 finalist, Comedy Central Presents and HBO One Night Stand specials, director of Women Aren't Funny, author of You're Better Than Me, My Wife Hates Me podcast with husband Rich Vos.
Boop! The Musical
BOOP! The Musical is a Broadway musical based on Betty Boop, with music by David Foster, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, book by Bob Martin, directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell. It premiered in Chicago in 2023, ran at the Broadhurst Theatre from April 5 to July 13, 2025, earned Jasmine Amy Rogers a Tony nomination, and launches a US tour in 2026.
Booty shake
Booty shake: a dance movement shaking or vibrating the buttocks and hips; related to twerk, New Orleans bounce, and African diaspora booty dances such as Mapale, Mapouka, and Dancehall.
Born in the RSA
Born in the RSA is a 1985 docudrama play created by director Barney Simon and the Market Theatre Company in Johannesburg in response to apartheid's State of Emergency.
Boulevard theatre
Boulevard theatre, or théâtre de boulevard, is a French tradition of light commercial entertainment theater named for the Paris playhouses of the boulevard du Temple and Grands Boulevards.