Six Characters in Search of an Author is a 1921 Italian play by Luigi Pirandello, first performed in that same year.

Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet and short story writer. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage".

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!" ""Madhouse!"), 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.

The play had its American premiere in 1922 on Broadway at the Princess Theatre, and was performed for over a year off-Broadway at the Martinique Theatre beginning in 1963.

An acting company prepares to rehearse the play The Rules of the Game by Luigi Pirandello. As the rehearsal is about to begin the play is unexpectedly interrupted by the arrival of six strange people.