3,335 articles
Morality play
Morality play: medieval European allegorical drama of the 15th and 16th centuries in which personified virtues, vices, and Death contend for a representative human's soul; best-known English examples include Everyman and The Castle of Perseverance.
Morey Amsterdam
Morey Amsterdam (Moritz Amsterdam), American comedian and "Human Joke Machine", gag writer and cellist-prop comic, Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) and host of Broadway Open House; also wrote "Rum and Coca-Cola".
Morgan McMichaels
Morgan McMichaels, drag persona of Scotland-born Thomas White (b. 1981), is a Los Angeles drag performer who competed on RuPaul's Drag Race season 2 and All Stars 3, is Chad Michaels's drag daughter, and is known for celebrity impersonations.
Moroccan theatre
Moroccan theatre (المسرح المغربي) is the tradition of staged drama in Morocco, emerging in the early 1920s under colonial rule and professionalized after independence in 1956.
Morris dance
Morris dance (morris dancing): English folk dance of rhythmic stepping, choreographed figures, bell pads, sticks, swords, and hankies; documented from 1448; styles include Cotswold, Border, rapper; 12,600 UK dancers in 2023.
Mort Sahl
Mort Sahl (Morton Lyon Sahl, 1927-2021), Montreal-born American stand-up comedian and political satirist who pioneered headline-driven improvised monologues at San Francisco's hungry i, influenced Lenny Bruce through Jon Stewart, and derailed his career over the JFK assassination.
Moscow Art Theatre
Moscow Art Theatre (MKhT, Московский Художественный театр), founded 1898 by Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko; pioneer of ensemble psychological realism, home of The Seagull and the Stanislavsky system, split in 1987 into Chekhov and Gorky theatres.
Moscow State Academy of Choreography (Московская государственная академия хореографии)
The Moscow State Academy of Choreography, known internationally as the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, is the Bolshoi Theater's training school in Moscow, founded in 1773 as dance classes at the Moscow Foundling Home.
Moshe Kasher
Moshe Kasher (born 1979) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and author from Oakland, host of Comedy Central's Problematic, Netflix's Live in Oakland and The Honeymoon Stand Up Special, the Endless Honeymoon Podcast with wife Natasha Leggero, and memoirs Kasher in the Rye and Subculture Vulture.
Moth joke
The moth joke is Norm Macdonald's 2009 Conan bit stretching a one-line moth-and-podiatrist joke into a four-minute Tolstoy-inflected monologue ending 'Cause the light was on,' now a celebrated shaggy-dog-style comedy classic.
Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children (Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder) is Bertolt Brecht's anti-war epic play, written in exile around 1938–1939, set in the Thirty Years War, following canteen woman Anna Fierling who profits from war while losing her three children, Eilif, Kattrin, and Swiss Cheese.
Motsi Mabuse
Motsi Mabuse (Motshegetsi Mabuse), South African ballroom and Latin dancer born 1981; eight-time South African Latin champion; Let's Dance judge since 2011 and Strictly Come Dancing judge since 2019, replacing Darcey Bussell.
Mourning Becomes Electra
Mourning Becomes Electra is a trilogy of plays by Eugene O'Neill, first performed on Broadway in 1931, retelling Aeschylus's Oresteia in post-Civil War New England.
Moving head light
A moving head light is an automated stage lighting fixture with a motorized head that pans and tilts under remote control, used at concerts, theaters, and nightclubs.
Mṛcchakatika (मृच्छकटिकम्)
Mṛcchakatika (मृच्छकटिकम्), The Little Clay Cart, is a ten-act Sanskrit prakaraṇa drama attributed to Śūdraka, telling of Cārudatta and Vasantasenā in Ujjayinī; its date and authorship are disputed, and it is known through Ryder's 1905 translation and many stage and film adaptations.
Mrinalini Sarabhai
Mrinalini Sarabhai (1918-2016), Indian classical dancer and choreographer trained in Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, and Mohiniyattam; founder of Darpana Academy, Ahmedabad; Padma Shri 1965, Padma Bhushan 1992; wife of Vikram Sarabhai.
Mrs. Doubtfire (musical)
Mrs. Doubtfire is a 2019 musical comedy based on the 1993 Robin Williams film and Anne Fine's novel, with score by Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick; it played Broadway's Stephen Sondheim Theatre in 2021-2022 and later the West End and tours.
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Mrs. Warren's Profession is a play by George Bernard Shaw, written in 1893, in which Vivie Warren discovers her mother funded her upbringing through brothels.
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare's comedy of two love plots in Messina, written about 1598-1599 and first printed in a 1600 quarto; its Beatrice-Benedick wit war is largely his invention, and it remains his most frequently performed comedy.
Mujra
Mujra: a North Indian and Pakistani courtesan performance genre, historically by tawaifs, blending Kathak dance with thumri and ghazal; Mughal court origins, Bollywood film presence, and modern Pakistani digital stage culture.
Muktadhara
Muktadhara (মুক্তধারা), translated as The Free Current or The Waterfall, is a 1922 Bengali allegorical play by Rabindranath Tagore about a king who dams a river to dominate a valley.
Mukudj
The mukudj is a kaolin-whitened wooden face mask of the Punu people of southern Gabon, carved as an idealized woman and danced by male performers on stilts.
Mukunda Indira
Mukunda Indira (मुकुन्द इन्दिरा) is a Nepali-language social drama in five acts by Balkrishna Sama, first staged in 1937 and regarded as Nepal's first modern play.
Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis
The Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis, now the Mülheimer Dramatikpreis, is an annual German drama prize awarded since 1976 at the Mülheimer Theatertage for the best German-language stage play, considered the most important in German-language drama.
Mummers
Mummers are costumed amateur performers in festive folk customs: the English mummers' play (St George, the Doctor, death-and-revival), Newfoundland Christmas mummering house-visits, and Philadelphia's New Year's Day Mummers Parade.
Munawar Faruqui
Munawar Iqbal Faruqui, Indian stand-up comedian, rapper, and reality TV winner of Lock Upp Season 1 and Bigg Boss 17; arrested in Indore in 2021 under section 295A for jokes he did not perform.
Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral is T. S. Eliot's 1935 verse drama on Thomas Becket's 1170 assassination, written for the Canterbury Festival, first staged in the cathedral's Chapter House.
Murray Hill (performer)
Murray Hill is the stage name of an American comedian and drag king who plays Fred Rococo on HBO's Somebody Somewhere and hosts Drag Me to Dinner.
Music hall
Music hall was a British popular theatrical entertainment of singers, comedians, and specialty acts, flourishing from the mid-nineteenth century to the First World War; its North American equivalent was vaudeville.
Music Lessons
Music Lessons (Uroki muzyki, Уроки музыки) is a two-act drama by the Russian playwright Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, written in 1973 and staged by Roman Viktyuk in 1979.