Six Characters In Search of an Author

Six Characters in Search of an Author is a 1921 Italian play by Luigi Pirandello, first performed in that same year. An absurdist metatheatrical play about the relationship between authors, their characters, and theatre practitioners, it premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome to a mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of "Manicomio!", though the reception improved at subsequent performances – helped when Pirandello provided for the play's third edition, published in 1925, a foreword clarifying its structure and ideas.