3,335 articles
Paul Dinello
Paul Dinello (born 1962), American comedian, actor, writer, director; co-creator and Geoffrey Jellineck actor on Strangers with Candy, Wigfield co-author, and longtime writer-supervising producer on The Colbert Report and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Paul F. Tompkins
Paul F. Tompkins (Paul Francis Tompkins, born 1968, Philadelphia) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and podcaster: Mr. Show writer, Mr. Peanutbutter on BoJack Horseman, host of Spontaneanation and Threedom, and the most frequent Comedy Bang! Bang! guest.
Paul Lazar
Paul Lazar (born 1955) is an American actor and director who co-founded Big Dance Theater in 1991 and has appeared in more than 30 feature films.
Paul Merton
Paul Merton (born Paul Martin, 1957) is an English improvisational comedian and comedy historian, Comedy Store Players member since 1985, team captain on Have I Got News For You since 1990, regular on Just a Minute since 1989, and host of TV's Room 101.
Paul Mooney (comedian)
Paul Mooney (Paul Gladney, 1941–2021), American comedian, writer, and actor; Richard Pryor's longtime writing partner, SNL "Word Association" writer, Homey D. Clown and Negrodamus creator, memoirist of Black Is the New White.
Paul O'Grady
Paul O'Grady (1955–2023), also known as Lily Savage, English comedian and TV presenter who rose to fame as his drag persona, hosted The Paul O'Grady Show, Blankety Blank, and Blind Date, and championed animal welfare through Battersea.
Paul Sinha
Paul Sinha, born Supriya Kumar Sinha in 1970, is a British stand-up comedian, quizzer, and former GP known as The Sinnerman on The Chase, and a Parkinson's disease advocate.
Paul Zerdin
Paul Zerdin (born 1972, London) is a British comedy ventriloquist, winner of America's Got Talent season 10 in 2015 and its $1 million prize, known for puppets Sam, Albert, and Baby, the 1996 Big Big Talent Show win, and Las Vegas residency Mouthing Off.
Paula Poundstone
Paula Poundstone (born 1959) is an American stand-up comedian, NPR Wait Wait panelist, Nobody Listens podcast host, and Inside Out voice actor; first woman to host the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Pavane
Pavane (also pavan, paduana): a slow, stately duple-meter processional court dance of the 16th and early 17th centuries, usually paired with the quicker galliard; revived as a concert form by Fauré (1887) and Ravel (1899).
Pax Assadi
Pax Assadi, New Zealand comedian, actor, and writer of Pakistani-Iranian refugee family background; Frickin Dangerous Bro trio member, creator-star of sitcom Raised by Refugees, Endangered Species Aotearoa co-host, and memoirist of Mortified.
PechaKucha (ぺちゃくちゃ)
PechaKucha (ぺちゃくちゃ), Japanese for chit-chat, is a 20-slide, 20-seconds-per-slide presentation format (6 min 40 s) invented in Tokyo in 2003 by architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, now a global event series and teaching method.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681), Spanish Baroque playwright and priest of the Golden Age, successor to Lope de Vega; wrote over 120 comedias including La vida es sueño and 80 autos sacramentales.
Pee-wee Herman
Pee-wee Herman is a comic character created and played by Paul Reubens (1952-2023). Developed at the Groundlings, famous for the 1981 stage show, Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), and Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986-1991).
Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt is Henrik Ibsen's five-act 1867 dramatic poem, written in Danish, about a self-absorbed Norwegian fantasist's lifetime of evasion; premiered 1876 with Edvard Grieg's incidental music and regarded as Norway's national play.
Pende Panya Ngombe mask
The Panya Ngombe mask is a horizontally extended wooden buffalo mask of the Eastern Pende people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, danced during boys' initiation.
Penina Muhando
Penina Muhando, also published as Penina O. Mlama, is a Tanzanian playwright and professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, a pioneer of African popular theater who writes in Kiswahili.
Penn & Teller
Penn & Teller: American comedy-magic duo of Penn Jillette and Teller, formed 1975 as the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society. Longest-running Las Vegas headliners (Rio since 2001), creators of Bullshit! and Fool Us, known for exposing their own methods.
Penn Jillette
Penn Jillette (Penn Fraser Jillette, born 1955, Greenfield, Massachusetts) is an American magician, author, and TV personality, the talkative half of Penn & Teller, holder of the longest-running Las Vegas headliner residency, and author of God, No! and Presto!.
Penny Arcade (performer)
Penny Arcade, stage name of Susana Ventura (born 1950), is a New York performance artist, poet, and experimental theater maker of the Playhouse of the Ridiculous, Warhol Factory, and Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!
Pepper's ghost
Pepper's ghost is a stage illusion where a brightly lit figure is reflected onto a 45-degree sheet of glass or foil. It premiered in London on December 24, 1862.
Peppermint (entertainer)
Peppermint (Miss Peppermint), American drag performer, actor, and trans activist; Delaware native and New York club veteran; first runner-up on RuPaul's Drag Race Season 9 (2017) and in 2018 the first trans woman to originate a principal Broadway role, as Pythio in Head Over Heels.
Percilla Bejano
Percilla Bejano (Percilla Román/Lauther, 1911–2001), the Monkey Girl and Bearded Lady, was a Puerto Rican-born sideshow performer with hypertrichosis and hyperdontia who married the Alligator Skin Boy, Emmitt Bejano, in 1938 and appeared in Carny (1980).
Performing arts
Performing arts, also called the live arts, are art forms presented live before an audience: music, dance, theatre, opera, circus, pantomime, and puppetry. Distinguished from visual arts and performance art; a UNESCO intangible heritage domain with major economic and cultural-policy weight.
Performing arts presenters
Performing arts presenters are organizations that select, book, and present artists' work to audiences without producing it themselves. Key facts: APAP founded 1957; CAPF funds ~800 series yearly; US ticket data 2021-26.
Peribáñez y el comendador de Ocaña
Peribáñez y el comendador de Ocaña is a three-act play by Lope de Vega, written around 1604–1608, in which a peasant kills the noble pursuing his wife.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a 1608 Jacobean romance play, first printed in quarto in 1609, co-authored by Shakespeare and George Wilkins, omitted from the First Folio, and based on the Apollonius of Tyre legend.
Perri Kiely
Perri Luc Kiely (born 1995, Essex) is an English street dancer and presenter, Diversity member who won Britain's Got Talent 2009, won Splash! 2014, Dancing on Ice 2020 runner-up, and KISS Breakfast co-host with Jordan Banjo until 2026.
Persian drama
Persian drama is the dramatic tradition of Iran, centered on the taʿziyeh (تعزیه) passion play, comic folk forms, and Western-style theater adopted in the 19th century.
Pete Davidson
Pete Davidson (born 1993, Staten Island) is an American stand-up comedian and actor, SNL cast member 2014–2022, star of The King of Staten Island and Bupkis, son of a firefighter killed on 9/11.