3,335 articles
Lenny Clarke
Lenny Clarke, American stand-up comedian and actor born 1953 in Boston, rose from hosting open mikes at Cambridge's Ding Ho to TV roles as Uncle Teddy on Rescue Me, Officer Adam Hampton on The John Larroquette Show, and his own CBS sitcom Lenny.
Lenny Henry
Lenny Henry (Sir Lenworth George Henry) is an English comedian, actor, and Comic Relief co-founder born in Dudley in 1958, known for Tiswas, Three of a Kind, The Lenny Henry Show, Chef!, and acclaimed stage roles in Othello.
Leo Reich
Leo Reich is a British stand-up comedian and writer whose debut show Literally Who Cares?! satirizes a narcissistic Gen Z persona, earning a 2022 Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer nomination.
Léon Bakst (Леон Бакст)
Léon Bakst (Леон Бакст), born Leib-Khaim Rosenberg (1866–1924), Russian painter and stage designer, co-founder of Mir Iskusstva and chief designer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes; his Schéhérazade costumes set Paris fashion trends.
Leonarda Jonie
Leonarda Jonie (born Leonarda Gjoni), Montenegrin-American stand-up comedian based in Austin, Texas, formerly of the Bronx; anti-woke free-speech comic, Fordham graduate, actress in Jersey Shore Massacre, banned from Comedy Mothership.
Leopoldstadt (play)
Leopoldstadt is a play by Tom Stoppard about a Jewish family in Vienna from 1899 to 1955, tracing assimilation and the Holocaust. It won the 2023 Tony Award for Best Play.
Les Bains Douches (nightclub)
Les Bains Douches, later Les Bains, a Paris nightclub at 7 rue du Bourg l'Abbé opened 21 December 1978 in the 1885 Guerbois bathhouse, with Starck interiors, Joy Division and Depeche Mode concerts, Boukobza and the Guettas, reopened as a hotel-club in 2015.
Les Burgraves
Les Burgraves is a historical drama in verse by Victor Hugo, first performed at the Comédie-Française in Paris in 1843 and set among the ruined castles of the Rhine.
Les Dawson
Les Dawson (Leslie Dawson) was an English comedian and pianist known for deadpan monologues, mother-in-law jokes, the drag characters Cissie and Ada, and deliberately bad piano playing.
Les Indes galantes
Les Indes galantes, RCT 44, is Rameau's 1735 opéra-ballet on a libretto by Louis Fuzelier, a prologue plus four entrées set in Turkey, Peru, Persia, and North America; famous for the Les Sauvages entrée and Clément Cogitore's 2019 hip-hop staging at the Paris Opera.
Les Kurbas
Les Kurbas (Лесь Курбас), born Oleksander-Zenon Kurbas, was a Ukrainian theater director who founded Berezil and the modern Ukrainian theater, executed in the Stalinist purges in 1937.
Les Sylphides
Les Sylphides (Chopiniana): one-act plotless ballet by Michel Fokine to Chopin piano music, premiered as Chopiniana in 1907 and renamed by Diaghilev for the 2 June 1909 Ballets Russes Paris debut with Pavlova, Karsavina, and Nijinsky; the first abstract classical ballet.
Les Twins
Les Twins are French identical twin dancers Laurent and Larry Bourgeois (born 1988, Sarcelles), New Style hip-hop freestyle specialists, Criminalz Crew founders, 2011 Juste Debout champions, and longtime Beyoncé collaborators.
Leslie Jones (comedian)
Leslie Jones (Annette Leslie Jones), American stand-up comedian and actress born 1967 in Memphis; SNL writer and cast member 2014-2019, three Emmy nominations, Ghostbusters 2016, Daily Show guest host, Paris 2024 Olympics Sports Emmy.
Leslie Liao
Leslie Liao is an American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer from Orange County, based in Los Angeles, who left a Netflix HR job in 2024 after appearing on Verified Stand-Up, Just For Laughs, and The Tonight Show.
Lethabo Monametsi
Lethabo Monametsi (Gaopalelwe Lethabo Monametsi), South African Latin dance champion from Johannesburg; Dance Yo Dumo 2022 winner with Urban Wave, WDC world quarter finalist, and new Strictly Come Dancing season 24 professional; founder of the Gaopalelwe Foundation.
Lewis Black
Lewis Black is an American stand-up comedian and actor born in 1948, known for angry rants on The Daily Show and for voicing Anger in Pixar's Inside Out.
Li Jin Hao (李金昊)
Li Jin Hao (李金昊), aka Jin Hao Li, Singaporean stand-up comedian born in China, St Andrews-educated; 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Best Newcomer nominee for Swimming in a Submarine; distinct from Chinese comedian Li Haoshi (House).
Liam Williams (comedian)
Liam Williams (born 1988) is an English stand-up comedian, writer, and actor from Garforth, Leeds, twice Edinburgh Comedy Award-nominated, a member of sketch troupe Sheeps, and creator-star of the BBC Three series Pls Like and Ladhood.
Liberation (play)
Liberation is Bess Wohl's memory play about a 1970 Ohio consciousness-raising feminist group and Lizzie's daughter fifty years later. It won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2026 Tony Award for Best Play, with Susannah Flood starring under Whitney White's direction.
Life Is a Dream
Life Is a Dream (La vida es sueño) is a 1636 three-act tragicomedy by Pedro Calderón de la Barca in which Polish prince Segismundo, imprisoned over a horoscope, learns prudence; noted for its free-will themes, famous soliloquy, and many adaptations.
Life of Galileo
Life of Galileo (Leben des Galilei) is Bertolt Brecht's play about Galileo Galilei's recantation before the Inquisition, written in exile in three versions (1938, 1945, 1955), premiered in Zurich in 1943, and central to debates on the scientist's responsibility.
Life of William Shakespeare
Life of William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Stratford-born English playwright, actor, and Lord Chamberlain's Men shareholder. Covers baptism, marriage to Anne Hathaway, the lost years, London career, Stratford investments, and 1616 death.
Likay
Likay (ลิเก) is a form of Thai folk theater combining singing, dancing, and improvised dialogue with live music, popular at temple fairs and festivals nationwide.
Lil Duval
Lil Duval (Roland Powell, born 1977) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and rapper from Jacksonville, Florida. Known for MTV2's Guy Code, Ain't That America, and the 2018 number-one R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay hit "Smile (Living My Best Life)" with Snoop Dogg and Ball Greezy.
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman (1905–1984), American playwright and memoirist; wrote The Children's Hour (691 performances) and The Little Foxes; refused to name names before HUAC in 1952; later wrote acclaimed but disputed memoirs.
Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell (Helen Louise Leonard, 1860 or 1861-1922) was America's leading comic opera and operetta soprano of the 1880s-1890s, star of Tony Pastor, Casino Theater, and Weber and Fields shows, famed for "Come Down Ma Evenin' Star" and Gilded Age celebrity.
Lillie Langtry
Lillie Langtry (Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, 1853–1929), the Jersey Lily, a British professional beauty and actress, mistress of Edward VII, famed for her US tours, Pears Soap endorsements, and the Texas town Langtry named for her.
Lily Allen Performs West End Girl
Lily Allen Performs West End Girl is Lily Allen's 2026 concert tour staging her album West End Girl (also called West End Girl Live) in full as one-woman musical theatre, with a Dallas Minor Trio karaoke first act, Anna Fleischle's apartment set, and debate over its 55-minute, no-interaction format.
Limelight
Limelight, also called Drummond or calcium light, is quicklime (calcium oxide) heated by an oxyhydrogen flame to incandescence; the first practical spotlight, used from Covent Garden 1837 until electric arc and incandescent lamps replaced it by the 1920s, origin of the phrase "in the limelight".