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This Orange Is the New Black trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers all seven seasons of the Netflix series: Piper Chapman's arrival at Litchfield, Alex Vause and the drug money that put them both inside, Red's kitchen, Vee's gang war, the used-panty business, Poussey's death, the three-day riot and the move to Max. It also digs into the real story behind the show — Piper Kerman's memoir, the Connecticut prison she actually served time in, and the ex-girlfriend who became Alex — plus casting near-misses, the abandoned psychiatric hospital used as the set, the Regina Spektor theme, and the record-setting Emmy run. Early questions are gentle enough for anyone who has seen a season or two; the later ones reward people who noticed who blinks in the title sequence and which actress auditioned for a different inmate. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries and cast biographies before publishing, so you can trust the results and argue about them freely.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which streaming service did Orange Is the New Black premiere in 2013?
Netflix
It became the platform's most-watched original series, and by 2016 also its longest-running.
Q 02Who created Orange Is the New Black?
Jenji Kohan
Kohan had previously created Weeds for Showtime, another series built around a suburban woman drawn into the drug trade.
Q 03The series is based on a memoir by which real woman?
Piper Kerman
Her book was subtitled My Year in a Women's Prison and came out in 2010, three years before the show.
Q 04What is the name of the fictional prison where most of the series is set?
Litchfield Penitentiary
Litchfield is a real town in New York, but it has no federal prison; the show simply borrowed the name.
Q 05How long is Piper's original prison sentence?
15 months
The real Piper Kerman got the same 15-month sentence and served 13 of them.
Q 06What crime landed Piper in prison?
Carrying drug money through customs
The offence happened roughly a decade before the show begins, after which Piper had built a quiet, law-abiding life in New York.
Q 07Who plays Piper Chapman?
Taylor Schilling
She was the first actor cast, in August 2012, and earned Golden Globe nominations in both the comedy and drama categories for the role.
Q 08Which actress was the show creator's original choice for Piper before other commitments got in the way?
Katie Holmes
Kohan met with her to discuss the part before it went to Taylor Schilling.
Q 09Laura Prepon ended up as Alex, but which role did she originally audition for?
Piper
Kohan felt Prepon had a toughness that meant viewers would never worry about her in prison, so she was given the drug-smuggling ex-girlfriend instead.
Q 10Which character named Piper in her testimony, leading to Piper's arrest?
Alex
The two are reunited inside Litchfield and spend seven seasons in an on-again, off-again relationship.
Q 11Who plays Piper's fiancé Larry Bloom?
Jason Biggs
Biggs was the second actor cast, right after Schilling; he was written out as a regular after season two.
Q 12Which Star Trek: Voyager captain plays kitchen boss Galina 'Red' Reznikov?
Kate Mulgrew
Mulgrew commanded the USS Voyager for seven seasons before spending another seven running Litchfield's kitchen.
Q 13What nationality is Red, the inmate who runs the prison kitchen?
Russian
She also acts as the behind-the-scenes leader of the prison's white inmates, and gives addicts only two strikes because 'Russians don't play baseball.'
Q 21Roughly how long does the season-five prison riot last?
Three days
Some critics disliked spending an entire season on such a short window; the SERT team ends it by raiding the prison.
Q 22Which character runs the prison kitchen's drug-smuggling operation before Red frames him for it?
Mendez
Pablo Schreiber's guard was a recurring role from October 2012 that earned him an Emmy nomination.
Q 23Which season-two antagonist beats Red with a padlock inside a sock?
Vee
Lorraine Toussaint's Yvonne 'Vee' Parker won a Critics' Choice award for the role, which lasted a single season.
Q 14Which character earns the nickname 'Crazy Eyes'?
Suzanne Warren
Uzo Aduba originally read for the part of Janae Watson before being offered Suzanne instead.
Q 15What pet name does Suzanne give Piper because of her blonde hair?
Dandelion
Other inmates have their own labels for Piper: Pennsatucky calls her 'College' and Tricia calls her 'Brain'.
Q 16Uzo Aduba is one of two actors with comedy and drama Emmys for the same role. Who is the other?
Ed Asner
Aduba won as a guest actress in comedy in 2014 and as a supporting actress in drama in 2015 after the Emmys reclassified hour-long shows as dramas.
Q 17Why was the show forced to switch from the comedy to the drama Emmy categories in 2015?
A new rule classified hour-long shows as dramas
That made it the first series ever nominated in both the comedy and drama categories.
Q 18Who plays Tasha 'Taystee' Jefferson?
Danielle Brooks
Brooks later earned an Oscar nomination for The Color Purple; Taystee's story about foster care and Vee's heroin business is one of the show's central arcs.
Q 19Which actress played Poussey Washington in Orange Is the New Black and later starred in The Handmaid's Tale?
Samira Wiley
Wiley heard about the auditions from a Juilliard friend who was writing for the show.
Q 20Which corrections officer accidentally kills Poussey in season four?
Bayley
Her death, after a peaceful cafeteria protest, is the spark for the three-day riot that fills season five.
Q 24Who plays Nicky Nichols, Red's most trusted assistant?
Natasha Lyonne
It was Lyonne's first television job as a series regular; she went on to co-create Russian Doll.
Q 25Which character was Nicky's actress originally going to audition for?
Alex
Casting director Jen Euston said Kohan knew Lyonne 'could do Nicky with her eyes closed.'
Q 26Which real-life transgender actress plays Sophia Burset?
Laverne Cox
Cox's identical twin brother, M Lamar, played the pre-transition Sophia in flashbacks.
Q 27Which milestone did Sophia's actress reach in 2014 thanks to the role?
First transgender person nominated for an acting Emmy
She was also the first transgender nominee for any Emmy since composer Angela Morley in 1990.
Q 28What is the nickname of Tiffany Doggett, played by Taryn Manning?
Pennsatucky
Manning was offered the role outright rather than auditioning; the character's arc runs from religious zealot to one of the show's most tragic figures.
Q 29Which corrections officer fathers Daya's baby?
Bennett
Matt McGorry played John Bennett as a recurring character from 2013 to 2015 before leaving for How to Get Away with Murder.
Q 30Which Piper business venture in season three smuggles goods out of prison via a friendly guard?
Used panties
She recruited inmates to wear them and paid them at first in ramen seasoning packets, until Flaca threatened a strike.