Henrik Johan Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, When We Dead Awaken, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House was the world's most performed play in 2006.
Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson was a Norwegian writer who received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit". The first Norwegian Nobel laureate, he was a prolific polemicist and extremely influential in Norwegian public life and Scandinavian cultural debate. Bjørnson is considered to be one of the four great Norwegian writers, alongside Ibsen, Lie, and Kielland. He is also celebrated for his lyrics to the Norwegian national anthem, "Ja, vi elsker dette landet". The composer Fredrikke Waaler based a composition for voice and piano (Spinnersken) on a text by Bjørnson, as did Anna Teichmüller.
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1876. Written in Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed Per Gynt, the Norwegian fairy tale on which the play is loosely based, to be rooted in fact, and several of the characters are modelled after Ibsen's own family, notably his parents Knud Ibsen and Marichen Altenburg. He was also generally inspired by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen's collection of Norwegian fairy tales, published in 1845.
The National Theatre in Oslo is one of Norway's largest and most prominent venues for performance of dramatic arts.
Laura Sofie Coucheron Gundersen was a Norwegian actress, counted as the first native-born tragedienne, and also, in some aspect, as her country's first professional native actress and prima donna. She was associated with Christiania Theater from her debut in 1850 until her death, except for the seasons 1870-72, when she played at Møllergatens Theater.
Johanne Dybwad was a Norwegian stage actress and stage producer. She was the leading actress in Norwegian theatre for half a century.
Olaf Mørch Hansson was a Norwegian actor and theatre director, journalist and newspaper editor. He was married to Thora Hansson from 1880 to 1896, and then to Agnethe Schibsted-Hansson from 1896 to 1912.
Anna Magdalene Thoresen, née Kragh was a Danish-born Norwegian poet, novelist, short story writer and playwright. She is said to have inspired a number of other writers to model characters after her. Her stepdaughter, Suzannah Ibsen, was married to Henrik Ibsen.
Agnes Mowinckel was a Norwegian actress and theatre director. Born in Bergen into a distinguished family, she became Norway's first professional stage director. A pioneer in bringing painters to the theatre, she used light as an artistic element, and engaged contemporary composers. She took part in theatrical experiments, worked at small stages in Oslo, and founded her own theatre.
The Christiania Norwegian Theatre was founded in 1852 under the name Norwegian Dramatic School. The initiative came from lieutenant engineer Johannes Benedictus Klingenberg (1817–1882) after he had been disappointed by the un-Norwegian repertoire selection and had visited the Norwegian Theatre in Bergen. In 1854, the drama school was made into a performing arts theater.
Johan Anthon Abraham Fjeldsted Dahl was a Norwegian bookseller and publisher. He was a patron of the arts and was co-founder of Oslo Kunstforening.
Ibsen is a Norwegian family of Danish extraction. Its most famous members are playwright Henrik Ibsen, his son, statesman Sigurd Ibsen, and grandson, pioneer film director Tancred Ibsen. Several other family members have been noted artists.
Erike Kirstine Kolstad, was a Norwegian stage actress. She belonged to the pioneer generation of the first public theatre in Norway, the theatre of Christiania Offentlige Theater in Oslo in 1827. She is the first Norwegian actress known by name of this theatre, the first in Norway and thereby also the first professional native actress of her country.
Henriette Hansen, was a Norwegian stage actress, opera singer and ballet dancer. She belonged to the pioneer generation of the first public theatre in Norway, the theatre of Christiania Offentlige Theater in Oslo in 1827. This being the first public stage in Norway, she may be regarded as the first native professional ballet dancer in Norway: the first ballet dancer in Norway was likely the foreign born Christina Doreothea Stuart.
Christiane Magdalene Jane Bøcher, née Hansen, later Berg, was a Norwegian stage actress. She belonged to the pioneer generation of the first public theatre in Norway, when the Christiania Offentlige Theater was the only standing stage in Norway, and dominated by actors of Danish origin.
Sofie Marie Parelius was a Norwegian stage actress. She was known for her ability in comedy and viewed as one of the best Norwegian actor during her time of the classic works of Ludvig Holberg. She belonged to the elite of the actors at the Christiania Theatre in the second half of the 19th-century, when Norwegian actors successively replaced the Danish on Norway's national stage.
Christiania Offentlige Theater or Det Strømbergske Teater was a historic theatre in Oslo in Norway, active between 1827 and 1835. It was the first public theatre in Oslo and in Norway, and the predecessor of the Christiania Theatre.
Karen Marie Fougner was a Norwegian actress.
Agnethe Elisabeth Schibsted-Hansson was a Norwegian actress.
Jens Andreas Ludvig Selmer was a Norwegian stage actor and a film actor from the silent-film era.
