Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few plays have caused as much trouble as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? One long, drunken night at the home of George and Martha, with a younger couple caught in the crossfire, was enough to scandalise Broadway in 1962 and to test Hollywood's censors four years later, when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton brought the marriage to the screen. This quiz covers both versions. Expect questions on the plot and its twists, the four characters, the meaning of the title, the original stage production and its revivals, and the making of the movie: casting, locations, the censorship fight and the Oscars. It is written for theatre lovers, classic movie fans and students reading the play, with a mix of easy openers and details only devoted admirers will know. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What do Nick and Honey finally learn about the son George and Martha describe in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
They invented him
They invented him: unable to have children, the couple made the boy up early in their marriage and kept him going as a private game. George ends it once Martha mentions him to an outsider.
Q 02When George aims a gun at Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, what pops out of the barrel?
A Chinese parasol
A Chinese parasol springs from the gun, and everyone finds it extremely funny. Moments earlier George had slipped away while Martha told an embarrassing story about him.
Q 03In the 1966 film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the title song is sung to which nursery-rhyme melody?
Mulberry Bush
Mulberry Bush carries the words in the film and in most stage versions: Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is in the public domain, unlike the Disney tune the title parodies.
Q 04Which Cold War standoff began just three days after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf opened on Broadway?
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis began on 16 October 1962, three days after opening night at the Billy Rose Theatre, so the play's first weeks on Broadway coincided with the nuclear standoff.
Q 05What happened after the Pulitzer drama jury chose Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf for the 1963 prize?
No award was made
No award was made: the advisory board objected to the play's profanity and sexual themes and overruled its own jury. Both jurors resigned in protest.
Q 06The studio boss who bought the film rights to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf first promised which star as Martha?
Bette Davis
Bette Davis was to star opposite James Mason, and the playwright was delighted. He later said that pairing would have made a less flashy and ultimately deeper film.
Q 07How did Elizabeth Taylor prepare to play the frumpy, fifty-ish Martha in the film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Gained about 30 pounds
Taylor gained about 30 pounds, wore a wig and used makeup to look older and tired. Casting one of the world's most glamorous stars in the part had surprised many.
Q 08What is unusual about the name of Nick, the young husband in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Nobody ever says it
Nobody ever says it: Nick is never addressed or referred to by name in the play or the film. The film credits just four actors in all.
Q 09Which former comedy partner of Elaine May made his film directing debut with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols, until then known for comedy and Broadway hits, earned a Best Director nomination for his first film. He and May later played the lead couple themselves on stage in New Haven.
Q 10Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the leads of the Virginia Woolf film, fell in love while making which epic?
Cleopatra
Cleopatra brought the pair together in 1962 while both were married to other people. They wed in 1964, two years before playing a warring husband and wife.
Q 11Which American playwright, later the author of Seascape and Three Tall Women, wrote Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Edward Albee
Edward Albee based his warring couple on two married friends, a literature professor and an experimental filmmaker whose drinking salons ran from Friday afternoon into Monday.
Q 12In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, George is an associate professor in which department of the college?
History
History is George's subject, which sets him against his younger guest Nick, a scientist he comes to see as a threat.
Q 13The title Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf puns on a song from which 1933 Disney cartoon?
Three Little Pigs
Q 21In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Martha is the daughter of the man holding which post where George teaches?
College president
College president is the post her father holds, and he once expected George to follow him. Martha taunts her husband for lacking the ambition to do it.
Q 22Where have George and Martha spent the evening just before the action of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf begins?
A faculty party
A faculty party is where Martha met Nick and Honey and invited them back for a drink. She tells George only once the two of them are home.
Q 23In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, George says the son died swerving his car to avoid which animal?
A porcupine
Three Little Pigs introduced Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?, a best-selling single that became something of an anthem of the Great Depression.
Q 14Where did the playwright say he first saw the phrase Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf scrawled in soap?
On a bar mirror
On a bar mirror in a New York saloon, he recalled, where he was having a beer one night. It struck him as a typical university intellectual joke.
Q 15The director of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf won an Oscar for his very next film, which 1967 release?
The Graduate
The Graduate won him Best Director a year after his debut. Between them, his first two films earned 20 Oscar nominations.
Q 16How was the 1966 film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf photographed, winning an Oscar for its camera work?
In black and white
In black and white, it won the last Oscar handed out for that kind of cinematography before the two camera categories were combined into one.
Q 17Which Fred Zinnemann film beat Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf to the Best Picture Oscar?
A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons won six Oscars in all, including Best Actor for Paul Scofield, who beat Richard Burton's George to the award.
Q 18Which episode of The Office, with Jim and Pam as trapped guests, was originally titled Virginia Woolf?
Dinner Party
Dinner Party parodies the play: Michael invites the new couple over, and the evening slides into a chaotic display of his tense relationship with Jan.
Q 19What Oscar first did the film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf achieve with its four credited actors?
Every cast member nominated
Every cast member nominated was a first: Taylor and Burton in the lead categories, their two co-stars in supporting. Sleuth repeated the feat in 1972.
Q 20Virginia Woolf, the English author whose name the play borrows, wrote which novel set on a single day?
Mrs Dalloway
Mrs Dalloway follows a wealthy London woman through the day she prepares to host an evening gathering. The play uses Woolf's name only for its pun.
A porcupine is the detail George gives, the exact wording he used earlier in the evening in a story about a boyhood classmate.
Q 24Which actress, later a celebrated acting teacher, originated Martha on Broadway in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Uta Hagen
Uta Hagen won her second Tony for the part and went on to write Respect for Acting, used as a textbook in many college acting classes.
Q 25Which actress, in only her second film role, won an Oscar as Honey in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Sandy Dennis
Sandy Dennis took Best Supporting Actress as the fragile, neurotic young wife, one of two acting Oscars the picture won.
Q 26Which actor, a comedy lead of the 1970s, was Oscar-nominated as Nick in the film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
George Segal
George Segal lost Best Supporting Actor to Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie. Decades later he played the grandfather, Pops, on the sitcom The Goldbergs.
Q 27The uproar over the screen version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf helped push Hollywood to adopt what in 1968?
The film rating system
The film rating system took effect on November 1, 1968, after this picture and Blow-Up convinced the industry's new chief that the old Production Code was finished.
Q 28Which 1980s Hollywood star played Martha in the 2005 Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Kathleen Turner
Kathleen Turner, the star of Body Heat, beat a score of other contenders to the part, and the production moved on to London's Apollo Theatre the following year.
Q 29Elizabeth Taylor's Virginia Woolf Oscar was her second; which 1960 film, in which she played a call girl, won her first?
BUtterfield 8
BUtterfield 8 won Taylor the award even though she disliked the role. It was her last film for MGM.
Q 30In the film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the young newcomer Nick teaches in which department?
Biology
Biology is Nick's field, and George, guessing the guest is the blond, athletic new professor, is reluctant to have him over at all.