Tirso de Molina

Born Gabriel Téllez, Tirso de Molina was a Spanish Baroque dramatist, poet, Mercedarian friar, and priest. He studied at Alcalá and entered the Mercedarian Order in 1601, building a life that combined religious duties with an extraordinary literary career.

He is widely regarded as one of the standout playwrights of Spain’s Siglo de Oro. Although many of his plays have been lost, he is credited with writing a large body of work, and the surviving plays show a remarkable range: sharp comedies, religious dramas, and psychologically alert portraits of desire, deception, and honor.

Today he is especially famous for The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, the play most often linked to the first great dramatic version of Don Juan. Alongside that darker, legendary work, he also wrote admired comedies such as Don Gil of the Green Breeches, showing how skillfully he could move between serious moral drama and playful theatrical invention.