George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was a Nobel Prize-winning Irish dramatist and writer whose works, often satirical, were used to convey his political and social beliefs. While his political beliefs and writings (including strong Socialism) were sometimes controversial, his plays were popular and critical successes and have since been recognized as classics. His first success was 1894's Arms and the Man and other notable works include Saint Joan, Man and Superman (including the "Don Juan in Hell" sequence), Caesar and Cleopatra, and Major Barbara (about a Salvation Army worker). 
Shaw's most enduring mainstream work is Pygmalion (1912), a class satire taking its title and concept from Greek mythology, in which an egotistical diction teacher boasts, by improving a Cockney flower seller's articulation, he could pass her off as a duchess. Shaw was one of the screenwriters for the 1938 film adaptation and shared in an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. The film, with an altered ending, would become the basis of the musical My Fair Lady (debuting six years after his death). Acknowledging the playwright, however, the original Playbill cover featured an Al Hirschfeld drawing depicting Shaw himself as an angel manipulating the main characters as a puppeteer.
Shaw's last completed play staged in his lifetime was a short 1949 puppet piece Shakes versus Shav, in which marionette representations of William Shakespeare and Shaw himself argue over their theatrical and literary greatness.
==References==
* Linda has the leading role of Joan of Arc in a stage play in Sesame Street Episode 1049. While the play's title is not mentioned, the implication is that it's Saint Joan. Years later, in 1997, Linda Bove starred in a Deaf West Theatre production of Saint Joan.
* Roger Moore takes Annie Sue on a date in The Muppet Show episode 524, initially to see the opening of Hamlet. Since Hamlet was canceled, they saw Pygmalion instead.
* The Count's pet bat Ftatateeta is named after Cleopatra's nurse in Caesar and Cleopatra.
* In Sesame Street Episode 2220, two pigs Lovey and Thurston debate whether to see Pygmalion or Porky's II. In the episode script, the female pig describes Pig-malion as being about "this pig who teaches other pigs how to 'Oink' pretty."
* Henry Piggins in Sesame Street Episode 4081 is a porcine diction coach named after the male lead Professor Henry Higgins in both Pygmalion and My Fair Lady (and he leaves to see the play Pig-malion). 
==Connections==
*Northern Calloway played a page to Dunois in Saint Joan (Broadway, 1968)
*Helmar Augustus Cooper played Captain la Hire in Saint Joan (Broadway, 1993)
*Peter Falk played an English soldier in Saint Joan (Broadway, 1956)
*John Franklyn-Robbins played the Archbishop of Rheims and the executioner in Saint Joan (Broadway, 1993) 
*Victor Garber played Valentine in You Never Can Tell (Broadway, 1986) and Richard Dudgeon in The Devil's Disciple (Broadway, 1988)
*John Glover played the Archbishop of Rheims and a gentleman in Saint Joan (Broadway, 2018)
*Edward Hibbert played Mr. Praed in Mrs. Warren's Profession (Broadway, 2010)
*Earle Hyman played Dunois in Saint Joan (Broadway, 1956) and Captain la Hire in Saint Joan (Broadway, 1968)
*Dana Ivey played Ladu Utterword in Heartbreak House (Broadway, 1983) and Lady Britomart Undershaft in Major Barbara (Broadway, 2001)
*Glenda Jackson played Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion (stage, 1956)
*Raúl Juliá played Major Sergius Saranoff in Arms and the Man (Broadway, 1985)
*Kevin Kline played Captain Bluntschli in Arms and the Man (Broadway, 1985)
*Rod McLachlan played Bertrand de Poulengey and understudied Thomas de Courcelles in Saint Joan (Broadway, 1993) 
*Robert Morley played Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (stage, 1937) and Andrew Undershaft in Major Barbara (1941 film and 1965 album)
*Peter O'Toole played Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (stage, 1984 and Broadway, 1987)
*Vincent Price played Hector Hushabye in Heartbreak House (Broadway, 1938)
*Lynn Redgrave played Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren's Profession (Broadway, 1976) and Joan in Saint Joan (Broadway, 1977)
*Diana Rigg played Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion (stage, 1974)
*Diana Sands played Joan in Saint Joan (Broadway, 1968)
*David Warner played Andrew Undershaft in Major Barbara (Broadway, 2001)
*Orson Welles produced, directed, and played Captain Shotover in Heartbreak House (Broadway, 1938)
*Louis Zorich played Major Paul Petkoff in Arms and the Man (Broadway, 1985)
==See also==
*Bernard Shaw
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Category:Stage References