Which play includes the stage direction 'Exit, pursued by a bear'?

The play containing the stage direction “Exit, pursued by a bear” is The Winter’s Tale.

The direction appears in Act 3, Scene 3, after Antigonus has been ordered to abandon the infant Perdita on the Bohemian coast. A bear chases him offstage, and the audience later learns that he has been killed. The sudden shift from political tragedy to startling spectacle is one of Shakespeare’s most famous theatrical surprises.

The bear also helps mark the play’s unusual mixture of genres. The Winter’s Tale begins with jealousy, imprisonment, and apparent death, then moves toward pastoral comedy, romance, reunion, and restoration. Antigonus’s death is the grim hinge between those two halves.

There is no firm evidence that Shakespeare’s company used a live bear for the scene, although London audiences knew bear-baiting and other animal spectacles. Modern productions have used actors in costumes, puppets, projections, shadows, or sound effects. The direction is sometimes wrongly associated with Pericles or Cymbeline, but it belongs specifically to The Winter’s Tale.