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Proserpine is a verse drama written for children by the Romantic writers Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary wrote the blank verse drama and Percy contributed two lyric poems. Composed in 1820 while the Shelleys were living in Italy, it is often considered a partner to the Shelleys' play Midas. Proserpine was first published in the London periodical The Winter's Wreath in 1832. The drama is based on Ovid's tale of the abduction of Proserpine by Pluto, which itself was based on the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. Mary Shelley's version focuses on the female characters. In a largely feminist retelling from Ceres's point of view, Shelley emphasises the separation of mother and daughter and the strength offered by a community of women. Ceres represents life and love, and Pluto represents death and violence. The genres of the text also reflect gender debates of the time. Proserpine is part of a female literary tradition which, as feminist literary critic Susan Gubar describes it, has used the story of Ceres and Proserpine to "re-define, to re-affirm and to celebrate female consciousness itself". However, the play has been both neglected and marginalised by critics.

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• 1 February 1902 – Birth of Langston Hughes, who wrote several plays and founded the Skyloft Players to nurture black playwrights
• 3 February 1869 – Edwin Booth's Booth's Theatre opened with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
• 19 February 1704 – Ichikawa Danjūrō I (pictured), an early and influential kabuki actor, was stabbed and killed onstage by fellow actor Ikushima Hanroku
• 22 February 1972 – Red Detachment of Women, one of the eight model plays, was performed for Richard Nixon during his trip to China
• 24 February 1607 – Premiere of Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, which is the earliest operatic work that is still performed today
• 27 February 1877 – Premiere of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, which received poor reviews
• 28 February 1915 – Birth of Obie and Tony winning actor Zero Mostel
• 29 February 1948 – Birth of writer and director Mamunur Rashid, who won the Bangla Academy Literary Award for drama in 1982

Cillian Murphy is an Irish film and theatre actor active since 1996. He is often noted by critics for chameleonic performances in diverse roles, as well as for his distinctive blue eyes. A native of Cork, Murphy began his performing career as a rock musician. After turning down a record deal, he made his professional acting debut in the play Disco Pigs. He went on to star in a number of Irish and UK film and stage productions throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, first coming to international attention in 2003 as the hero in the post-apocalyptic film 28 Days Later. Murphy's best known roles are as villains in two 2005 blockbusters: the Scarecrow in superhero film Batman Begins, and Jackson Rippner in the thriller Red Eye. Next came two contrasting, widely acclaimed starring roles: his Golden Globe Award-nominated performance as transgender outcast "Kitten" in 2005's Breakfast on Pluto and a turn as a 1920s Irish revolutionary in 2006 Palme d'Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley. 2007 saw Murphy on the London stage in Love Song and onscreen in science fiction film Sunshine. Uncomfortable on the celebrity circuit, he customarily gives interviews about his work, but does not appear on television talk shows or discuss details of his private life with the press.

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• ... that Isabelle Cals, who turned to singing after a degree in Chinese, appeared as Wagner's Kundry in a production of Parsifal at the Stadttheater Minden?
• ... that Silvia Hauer, a singer of Rossini's Rosina and Bizet's Carmen at Staatstheater Wiesbaden, performed the mezzo-soprano solo of Verdi's Requiem in 2022?
• ... that during their two-minute performance at the Oulu City Theatre, the group Jumalan teatteri caused a huge scandal by throwing excrement, eggs and yoghurt at the audience?
• ... that the concert series Regine at the Theater was conceived two years earlier but was delayed after singer Regine Velasquez suffered acid reflux?
• ... that at the time of its construction in 1920, the Howard Theatre in Atlanta was the second-largest movie theater in the world, with a seating capacity of 2,700?
• ... that the Theatre Royal, Southampton, which Jane Austen visited in 1807, was described in 2013 as having "morphed into a hideous high-rise"?

One can play comedy, two are required for melodrama, but a tragedy demands three. — Elbert Hubbard, from Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers, 1906

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