Question: Who wrote the plays "The Birds" and "Lysistrata"?
Context: Thesmophoriazusae (Greek: Θεσμοφοριάζουσαι "Thesmophoriazousai"; meaning "Women Celebrating the Festival of the Thesmophoria", sometimes also called The Poet and the Women) is one of eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes.  It was first produced in 411 , probably at the City Dionysia.  The play's focuses include the subversive role of women in a male-dominated society; the vanity of contemporary poets, such as the tragic playwrights Euripides and Agathon; and the shameless, enterprising vulgarity of an ordinary Athenian, as represented in this play by the protagonist, Mnesilochus.  The work is also notable for Aristophanes' free adaptation of key structural elements of Old Comedy and for the absence of the anti-populist and anti-war comments that pepper his earlier work.  It was produced in the same year as "Lysistrata", another play with sexual themes. Birds' Paradise is located in Tianma Village, Xinhui District, Jiangmen, Guangdong Province, China.  It is a unique tourist attraction which is known for its beautiful natural environment and rich bird life.  The main body of Birds' Paradise is a small island with a thick banyan tree forest on it.  In 1933, Ba Jin(巴金)happened to take a trip here, and was deeply impressed by its wonderful views, so he wrote a famous article, "Birds' Heaven" to in memory of this special experience.  In 1984, Ba Jin（巴金）inscribed the words 小鸟天堂, and since then, this place was named after Birds' Paradise(小鸟天堂).  In 2016, the local government decided to make Birds' Paradise as a national wetland park. Lysistrata ( or ; Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη , "Lysistrátē", "Army Disbander") is a comedy by Aristophanes.  Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BCE, it is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was the only thing they truly and deeply desired.  Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes.  The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society.  Additionally, its dramatic structure represents a shift from the conventions of Old Comedy, a trend typical of the author's career.  It was produced in the same year as the "Thesmophoriazusae", another play with a focus on gender-based issues, just two years after Athens' catastrophic defeat in the Sicilian Expedition.  At this time, Greek theatre was a profound form of entertainment, which was extremely popular for all audiences as it addressed political issues relevant to that time. Aristophanes (c. 456 – c. 386 BC) is Greek Old Comic dramatist known for his plays "The Frogs", "The Birds", "The Clouds", and "Lysistrata". Thymios Karakatsanis (Piraeus, 8 December 1940 – Athens, 30 June 2012) was a Greek actor with notable career at theatre.  He was born in Piraeus on 8 December 1940.  He studied at Art Theatre of Karolos Koun.  His first professional role was at the play Thyrida of Tardieu in 1963.  He appeared in a few films at cinema but he became well known mainly from his roles at plays of Aristophanes.  He played the role of Lysistrata three times.  He appeared a lot of times at theatre of Ancient Epidavros.  In 1978, he made the group New Greek Stage and he presented famous plays starting from the play Von Dimitrakis of Dimitris Psathas.  In 1987 he won the theatre award for the play Death of a Salesman of Arthur Miller.  At the same period he also worked as radio presenter.  The play Death of a Salesman was his last role.  He died on 30 June 2012 at the age of 72 years. Dick the Mockingbird was the name of one of U.S. president Thomas Jefferson's pet birds.  Although presidents before him also had pets, Jefferson is thought to be "the first president to have a pet [that lived] in the White House..." Prior to his term in the Oval Office, Jefferson bought his first mockingbird from a slave for five shillings.  Birds were Jefferson’s favorite animal.  During his time in the White House Jefferson wrote observations on the types of birds that he spotted in the area.  In a letter to a friend he wrote, "I sincerely congratulate you on the arrival of the mockingbird.  Teach all the children to venerate it as a superior being which will haunt them if any harm is done to itself or its eggs." Matty Selman is a playwright, lyricist and composer who makes his home in New York City.  He first came into the national spotlight when he was hand-selected by Harvard's Robert Brustein to write the lyrics to an adaptation of Lysistrata with music by HAIR composer, Galt MacDermot.  The resulting work starred Tony Award winner Cherry Jones and was presented by the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard and the Prince Theatre in Philadelphia.  Both having lived on Staten Island, Selman and MacDermot continued their collaboration and wrote Goddess Wheel a further exploration of the Lysistrata tale, and The Tinderbox, based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen and set in war-torn Iraq.  Prior to working with Galt MacDermot, Matty had collaborated with Agnes of God playwright, John Pielmeier on three musicals, Steeplechase the Funny Place, Young Rube, and Slow Dance with a Hot Pickup. Cinesias (Greek: Κινησίας ; c. 450 – 390 BC) was an innovative dithyrambic poet (an exponent of the "new music") in classical Athens whose work has survived only in a few fragments.  An inscription indicates that he was awarded a victory at the Dionysia in the early 4th century (IG 2/3.3028).  His contemporary, the comic poet Aristophanes, ridiculed him in his play "The Birds", in which Cinesias attempts to borrow wings from the birds as an aid to poetic inspiration.  Aristophanes refers to him also in "The Frogs" (lines 153, 1437), "Ecclesiazusae" (line 330), "Lysistrata" (line 860), and in a fragmentary verse (fragment 156.  10 K-A).  Another comic poet, Strattis, wrote an entire play against Cinesias, of which only fragments survive (fragments 14-22 K-A), and he was considered by Pherecrates to have had a corrupting influence on dithyrambic poetry (fragment 155.  8ff.  K-A). Gilbert Vivian Seldes ( ; January 3, 1893 – September 29, 1970) was an American writer and cultural critic.  Seldes served as the editor and drama critic of the seminal modernist magazine "The Dial" and hosted the NBC television program "The Subject is Jazz" (1958).  He also wrote for other magazines and newspapers like "Vanity Fair" and the "Saturday Evening Post".  He was most interested in American popular culture and cultural history.  He wrote and adapted for Broadway, including "Lysistrata" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in the 1930s.  Later, he made films, wrote radio scripts and became the first director of television for CBS News and the founding Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. The Secret Theatre is an Off-Off-Broadway theatre that was established in The Long Island City Art Center in July 2007 by Actor/Director Richard Mazda.  It can seat slightly under fifty audience members.  The theatre is making a well-earned reputation as a home for The Queens Players and also through its 'repertory' style policy of mounting an average of over 9 mainstage productions in a year.  The inaugural production featured an original work by Joel Schatzky which starred Bill Krakauer father of noted Klezmer musician David Krakauer.  Bill is an 80-year-old psychotherapist turned actor who took on the challenging lead role of a conductor who escaped persecution by the Nazis by emigrating to America to pursue a musical career.  Subsequent productions in The Secret Theatre's first season included 'Theatre of Horror', a mainstage production featuring original plays from the Grand Guignol, A Christmas Carol, Lysistrata and Edward II by Christopher Marlowe.
Answer: Aristophanes