3,335 articles
Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh, British-Irish playwright and filmmaker born 1970 in Camberwell, London, wrote The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Pillowman, and Hangmen, and directed In Bruges, Three Billboards, The Banshees of Inisherin, and Wild Horse Nine.
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers, American comedy team of brothers Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo Marx, rose from vaudeville singing to Broadway and thirteen films (1929-1949), including Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera.
Mary Martin
Mary Martin (Mary Virginia Martin, 1913–1990), American Broadway star and singer; originated Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, Peter Pan, and Maria in The Sound of Music; won three Best Actress Tonys plus a Special Tony; mother of Larry Hagman.
Mary Stuart
Mary Stuart (Maria Stuart) is a five-act verse tragedy by Friedrich Schiller, first performed in Weimar in 1800, dramatizing Mary, Queen of Scots and her rival Elizabeth I.
Maryša
Maryša is an 1894 five-act social drama in tragic form by the brothers Alois and Vilém Mrštík, set in a Moravian village near Brno, regarded as the pinnacle of Czech realist drama.
Maskarade
Maskarade is a 1970 musical play by Jamaican writer Sylvia Wynter, first produced as a teleplay in 1973 and built on the Jonkonnu masquerade tradition.
Masked theatre
Masked theater is performance in which actors or dancers wear face coverings as part of the character, found in Greek drama, Japanese noh, and African masquerade.
Masque
Masque: an English courtly entertainment of the 16th–17th centuries combining poetry, music, dance, and scenery, flourishing under James I and Charles I; key figures Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, with the antimasque introduced in Oberon (1611).
Masses and Man
Masses and Man (Masse Mensch) is a seven-scene revolutionary drama by German playwright Ernst Toller, written in prison in 1919 and first staged in Nuremberg in 1920.
Master Juba
Master Juba, William Henry Lane (c. 1825–1852), African American challenge dancer of Manhattan's Five Points; beat John Diamond, toured Britain with Pell's Serenaders in 1848, earliest named tap dancer.
Master of ceremonies
Master of ceremonies (MC, emcee, compère): the person who introduces guests, speakers, and performers at formal occasions and keeps the program running; distinct from moderator, facilitator, and event manager.
Master Olof
Master Olof (Mäster Olof) is a five-act historical drama by August Strindberg about Olaus Petri, leader of the Swedish Reformation; repeatedly rejected, it was first staged in 1881.
Mat Fraser (actor)
Mat Fraser (born 1962, England) is an English actor, writer, and disability advocate with thalidomide-related short arms; known as Paul the Illustrated Seal in American Horror Story: Freak Show and for Sealboy: Freak. Not Brendan Fraser or psychic Matt Fraser.
Mathilde Kschessinska
Mathilde Kschessinska (Матильда Кшесинская), 1872–1971, Russian prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre, first Russian to dance 32 fouettés, linked to Nicholas II, later Princess Romanovskaya-Krasinskaya and Paris teacher.
Matt Besser
Matt Besser (born 1967, Little Rock, Arkansas) is an American comedian, Upright Citizens Brigade co-founder, improv4humans podcast host, Crossballs creator, and co-author of the UCB Comedy Improvisation Manual.
Matt Gourley
Matt Gourley (Matthew James Gourley, born 1973, Whittier, California), American actor, comedian, podcaster. Co-creator of Superego (2006) and producer/co-host of Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend; also James Bonding, With Gourley and Rust, Drunk History, Volkswagen spokesman 2012-2016.
Matt Mathews
Matt Mathews, American comedian, singer-songwriter, and former boudoir photographer from Birmingham, Alabama; viral TikTok "farm chores" videos, Boujee On A Budget and Not What I Ordered tours, 2025 YouTube special When That Thang Get Ta' Thang'n.
Matt Rife
Matt Rife, born 1995 in Columbus, Ohio, is an American stand-up comedian famous for TikTok crowd work clips, the Netflix specials Natural Selection (2023) and Lucid (2024), and record-selling tours.
Matt Steffanina
Matt Steffanina (born 1986) is an American hip-hop choreographer, DJ, and YouTube dance-tutorial creator, founder of DNCR Academy, and winner of The Amazing Race season 28 with Dana Alexa.
Matt Walsh (comedian)
Matt Walsh (born 1964, Chicago) is the American actor and comedian, not the Daily Wire commentator, who co-founded Upright Citizens Brigade and played Mike McLintock on HBO's Veep, earning two Emmy nominations.
Matthew Bourne
Matthew Bourne, born in 1960, is a British choreographer and director of the company New Adventures, famous for his 1995 Swan Lake danced by male swans.
Matthew Cowles
Matthew Cowles (1944–2014), American actor and playwright, played villain Billy Clyde Tuggle on All My Children (1977–1990, 2013 revival), earned two Daytime Emmy nominations, appeared on Broadway in Malcolm, and was married to Christine Baranski.
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949), Belgian Flemish-born francophone Symbolist playwright, poet, and essayist from Ghent; 1911 Nobel laureate; author of Pelléas et Mélisande and L'Oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird).
Maurizio Lombardi
Maurizio Lombardi (born 1973, Florence) is an Italian actor, playwright, and director: Cardinal Assente in The Young Pope/The New Pope, Ripley (Netflix 2024), Blade Runner 2099, Nastro d'Argento winner, one-man show Ho visto cose.
Max Bygraves
Max Bygraves (Walter William Bygraves, 1922–2012), English singer, comedian, and actor of postwar variety entertainment, known for Singalongamax albums, "I wanna tell you a story", Educating Archie, and Family Fortunes.
Max Factor
Max Factor (Maksymilian Faktorowicz, c. 1877–1938) was a Polish-born Hollywood make-up artist who invented film make-up, coined "make-up", and founded the cosmetics brand now owned by Coty.
Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt (Maximilian Goldmann, 1873–1943), Austrian-born theater director and impresario, founder of modern director's theater, director of Berlin's Deutsches Theater and Großes Schauspielhaus, co-founder of the Salzburg Festival, died in New York exile.
Max's Kansas City
Max's Kansas City was a Manhattan restaurant and nightclub, opened in 1965, that hosted Andy Warhol's circle and helped launch American punk before closing in 1981.
Maxie (drag queen)
Maxie (Jayvhot Andreison Galang) is a Filipino drag performer and LGBTQ advocate who won Drag Race Philippines Season 3 in 2024 and competed on Queen of the Universe.
Maxine Elliott
Maxine Elliott (1868–1940), born Jessie Dermot(t) in Rockland, Maine, was an American Broadway star, producer, and theater owner who built the Maxine Elliott Theatre (1908) and led Belgian war relief. Not the Maxine Elliott Hicks of film.