Gallathea or Galatea is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy by John Lyly. The first record of the play's performance was at Greenwich Palace on New Year's Day, 1588 where it was performed before Queen Elizabeth I and her court by the Children of St Paul's, a troupe of boy actors. At this point in his literary career, Lyly had already achieved success with his prose romance Euphues and was a writer in residence at Blackfriars theatre. The play is set in a village on the Lincolnshire shore of the Humber estuary and in the neighboring woods. It features a host of characters including Greek deities, nymphs, fairies, and some shepherds.

John Lyly was an English writer, playwright, courtier, and parliamentarian. He was best known during his lifetime for his two books Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) and its sequel Euphues and His England (1580), but is perhaps best remembered now for his eight surviving plays, at least six of which were performed before Queen Elizabeth I. Lyly's distinctive and much imitated literary style, named after the title character of his two books, is known as euphuism. He is sometimes grouped with other professional dramatists of the 1580s and 1590s like Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, George Peele, and Thomas Lodge, as one of the so-called University Wits. He has been credited by some scholars with writing the first English novel, and as being 'the father of English comedy'.