Monday, November 12, 2012
1874 Birthday of pioneering African-American performer-composer Bert Williams (1874-1922), who wrote music for Broadway's In Dahomey (1903) and Abyssinia (1906), but achieved even greate…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, November 9, 2012
1818 Playwright and novelist Ivan Turgenev is born in Russia. His most notable play is A Month in the Country, but he will make a bit of history in 2002 when his 150-year-old play Fortune's …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, November 7, 2012
1904 The timeless anthem "Give My Regards to Broadway" is first sung tonight on the Broadway stage tonight at the opening of George M. Cohan's Little Johnny Jones at the Libert…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, November 6, 2012
1854 Birthday of John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), composer of countless marches, who also found time to write Broadway musicals including Chris and the Wonderful Lamp (1900), The Free Lance (1…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, October 31, 2012
As the weakening super storm moves west, the lights are blazing again on the Great White Way after several days of closures and perhaps $5 million in lost revenue.NEW YORK – Sandy dimm…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:05PMFriday, October 26, 2012
1844 William Harrigan, half of the iconic 1880s writing and performing team of Harrigan and Hart, is born today. He and Tony Hart will create the popular Mulligan Guards characters reflectin…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, October 24, 2012
1904 Birthday of Moss Hart, Broadway playwright who will write or cowrite The Man Who Came to Dinner, Once in a Lifetime, As Thousands Cheer, You Can't Take it With You and Lady in the Dark,…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, October 23, 2012
1844 Actress Sarah Bernhardt born today. "The Divine Sarah" will create many memorable roles in French and English, notably in Alexandre Dumas, fils' classic La Dame aux Cameli…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, October 21, 2012
1933 Trying to follow-up the success of their Pulitzer-winning musical Of Thee I Sing, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind bring back President John Wintergre…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, October 20, 2012
1882 Birthday of Bela Lugosi, Hungarian-born actor who plays a variety of character roles before landing the part that will make him an icon, the title role in Dracula, first on Broadway…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, October 15, 2012
1881 Birth of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse P.G. Wodehouse to theatre lovers in England. He will go on to write the "Jeeves" stories as well as many Broadway musicals including …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, October 14, 2012
1893 Lillian Gish, film acting pioneer whose Broadway career lasted from 1913 to 1976, is born today. Her stage shows will include Camille, The Trip to Bountiful and several versions of Uncl…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, October 8, 2012
1857 Birth of Edward Franklin Albee, who, with B.F. Keith, controlled one of the biggest circuits in vaudeville in the early 20th century. Also, grandfather and namesake of Pulitzer-winning …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, October 7, 2012
1907 The Gay White Way, a musical revue whose title meant something quite different in that innocent era, opens at the Casino Theatre for a then-healthy run of 105 performances. Blanche Ring…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, October 4, 2012
1880 Writer Damon Runyon, whose short story "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" will go on to form the basis for the musical Guys and Dolls, is born today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, October 3, 2012
1859 Eleanora Duse born in Italy. One of the leading actresses of her day, "The Great Duse" will champion the realistic playwrights of the early 20th century, and will have some of…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, October 1, 2012
1928 Mae West's controversial play Pleasure Man opens at the Biltmore Theatre. It's the story of an actor who has impregnated so many women that the brother of one of them takes up a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, September 30, 2012
1915 The huge Hippodrome Theatre opens one of its most successful extravaganzas, Hip! Hip! Hooray!. Described by the New York Times as "a gargantuan spectacle, smarter and more sumptuou…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, September 25, 2012
1928 Chee-Chee, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's musical about castration in ancient China, opens to searing reviews and goes on to close after just 31 performances, the team's shor…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 22, 2012
1921 The Music Box Revue of 1921 is the premiere performance at the new Music Box Theatre, which opened on 45th Street today. This is the first edition of the Revue, itself the first to exhi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 15, 2012
1889 Robert Benchley, the acclaimed actor, critic, and humorist of the early Twentieth Century, is born today. Benchley will marry Gertrude Darling and make his stage debut in this month in …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, September 14, 2012
1910 Birthday of Lehman Engel (1910-1982), the Tony-winning Broadway conductor who will found the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. Among the shows he will conduct are original productions of Wo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, September 13, 2012
1894 Birthday of British playwright J.B. Priestley (1894-1984), author of plays An Inspector Calls, When We Are Married, Laburnum Grove and A Severed Head.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, September 12, 2012
1866 The Broadway musical is born. The Black Crook opens at Niblo's Garden, a musical extravaganza featuring a melodramatic plot and scantily-dressed ballerinas who serve as chorus girls…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, September 7, 2012
1909 Director Elia Kazan is born. Kazan would go on to direct the award-winning plays Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire. His success reached to the silver screen as well. He w…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, August 14, 2012
Reports on Tail! Spin!, Gay Camp, and The Importance of Doing Art.
SOURCE: TheaterMania at 09:38AMMonday, August 13, 2012
Reports on Pink Milk, The Zebra Shirt of Lonely Children and Dark Hollow: An Appalachian Woyzeck
SOURCE: TheaterMania at 10:15AMSunday, August 5, 2012
1977 All Broadway marquee lights are dimmed tonight in honor of actor Alfred Lunt who died two days earlier. This is only the third time up to that point that such an action has been taken.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, July 27, 2012
Reports on Living With Henry, Zapata! The Musical, A Letter to Harvey Milk, and The Groove Factory.
SOURCE: TheaterMania at 07:00AMWednesday, July 25, 2012
Reports on Prison Dancer: The Musical, Swing State, Foreverman, and Le Cabaret Grimm.
SOURCE: TheaterMania at 07:00AMFriday, July 20, 2012
1961 Stop The World - I Want To Get Off opens tonight at the Queen's Theatre on London's West End. The musical, which follows the life of one man from birth to death, will run 485 p…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
