Massinger, << MAS uhn juhr, >> Philip (1583-1640), an English playwright, is best known for his comedy A New Way to Pay Old Debts (1621 or 1622). The play’s chief character, the monstrous villain Sir Giles Overreach, so appealed to actors and audiences that the play was performed longer than any other non-Shakespearean play of the 1600’s. The character of Sir Giles Overreach is based on the scandalous activities of a real nobleman, and the action is taken from Thomas Middleton’s play A Trick to Catch the Old One (1608).
Massinger was born in Salisbury of a prominent family. He turned to writing plays after dropping out of Oxford University in 1606. He wrote nearly 40 plays, some of them in collaboration with other playwrights. About 20 of his plays survive. From 1625 to his death, Massinger wrote one or two plays a year for The King’s Men, the leading acting company of the day. He died in March 1640.
