- July 1996 – First International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama held in Cyprus
- 9 July 1991 – Premier of Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden, which describes the encounter of a former torture victim with the man she believed tortured her
- 13 July 1934 – Birth of Wole Soyinka, considered Africa's most distinguished playwright and the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
- 17 July 1951 – Original Abbey Theatre burned down, the first state-subsidized theatre in the English-speaking world