Friday, July 24, 2015
1920 Producer Alexander H. Cohen, known for bringing quality plays to Broadway for six decades, is born today. Lastly represented on Broadway by the Noel Coward play, Waiting in the Wings, s…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, July 23, 2015
1938 Helen Hayes is named the stage's greatest performer when the New York Sun prints its list of great performers today. Compiled after polling 150 notable people, mostly in the theatre…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, July 20, 2015
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 4…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, July 17, 2015
1953 Actress Maude Adams dies today. Born in 1873, Adams, at the age of 32, played the title role in James M. Barrie's Peter Pan when it had its American premiere at the Empire Theatre i…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, July 12, 2015
1895 Birthday of Oscar Hammerstein II, scion of a notable theatrical family who went on to become its most famous and honored member as a lyricist and librettist. Hammerstein enjoyed a major…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, July 11, 2015
1915 A King is born today... in the form of Yul Brynner. Brynner will, of course, go on to star as one half of the title of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King And I, opposite Gert…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, July 8, 2015
Edwin Booth. Stereograph by J. Gurney & Son. Image ID: 89096
When we started to think about an exhibition on Head Shots based on the Library for the Performing Arts’ collections, we…
SOURCE: The New York Public Library at 02:52PMSunday, July 5, 2015
1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the American National Theatre and Academy bill today, calling for a self-supporting national theatre. ANTA will get off to a slow start but wil…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, July 4, 2015
1898 Birthday of actress Gertrude Lawrence (1898-1952), longtime acting partner of Noël Coward (Private Lives, Tonight at 8:30) and star of musicals by the Gershwin brothers (Oh, Kay!, …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, July 3, 2015
1878 The original Yankee Doodle Dandy, George M. Cohan (1878-1942) is born on the 3rd of July, (not the 4th as was family legend) says. A member of the vaudeville team The Four Cohans wi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, July 2, 2015
1900 Birthday of director/producer/writer Tyrone Guthrie (1900-1971) who will stage Broadway productions of The Tenth Man, Tamburlaine the Great and the Leonard Bernstein musical Candide.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, June 29, 2015
Press photograph of Frank Sinatra, ca. 1946
The Sinatra: An American Icon exhibition has many wonderful media stations for visitors—songs, excerpts from television specia…
SOURCE: The New York Public Library at 12:14PMSunday, June 28, 2015
1902 Birthday of Richard Rodgers (1902-1979), one of the most prolific and successful Broadway composers. His greatest successes came in partnership with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (O…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, June 27, 2015
1888 Birthday of Antoinette Perry (1888-1946), an actress and groundbreaking woman stage director who will help found the American Theatre Wing. In gratitude, the Wing will name its annu…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, June 24, 2015
1942 Gypsy Rose Lee and Bobby Clark are featured in Michael Todd's musical revue, Star and Garter, which opens a 609-performance run at the Music Box Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, June 23, 2015
Michael C. Hall, star of TV's "Dexter" and a recent replacement as star of Broadway's Hedwig and the Angry Inch, has been chosen to star in this fall's world premiere o…
SOURCE: Playbill at 01:31PMMichael C. Hall, star of TV's "Dexter" and a recent replacement as star of Broadway's Hedwig and the Angry Inch, has been chosen to star in this fall's world premiere o…
SOURCE: Playbill at 01:31PMMoscow’s ‘smallest but noisiest playhouse’ perseveres with latest documentary project in the face of legal threats and eviction by the authorities Peering at the audience from behind m…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:11AMSunday, June 21, 2015
1903 Caricaturist Al Hirschfeld (1903-2003) is born today. His distinctive looping line drawings will capture the essence of Broadway shows from the 1920s through the early 2000s. The Ma…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, June 19, 2015
1939 Lee and J. J. Shubert collaborate with Hellzapoppin creators Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson to present The Streets of Paris on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre. The revue's stars inc…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, June 18, 2015
July 9 at Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End BAFTA Award-winning writer and actor Stephen Merchant makes his West End debut in Richard Bean’s comic two-hander The Mentalists, runni…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:34AMMonday, June 15, 2015
1894 Birthday of Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981), orchestrator of Broadway classics including the original Sunny; Show Boat; Anything Goes; Oklahoma!; Annie Get Your Gun; Kiss Me, Kat…
SOURCE: Playbill at 01:00AMSaturday, June 13, 2015
1963 Stage actor Howard Da Silva finds himself at the other end of the spectrum: as director of a Lewis John Carlino double bill. Shelley Winters and Jack Warden star in the two one acts, Sn…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, June 12, 2015
1961 American ideals and and practices are put on trial as The Red Eye of Love opens at New York's Living Theatre. The satire by Arnold Weinstein will last 169 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, June 7, 2015
1909 Birthday of Broadway star Jessica Tandy (1909-1994), who created many landmark roles including Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Agnes in A Delicate Balance and Fonsia in …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, June 6, 2015
This week sees the film premiere of London Road, a musical based on one of Britain’s most infamous serial killings. Local people say the area has finally moved on from a tragic timeWhen re…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:08PM1954 Playwright and actor Harvey Fierstein is born today. Fierstein will win Tony Awards for writing and performing in his play Torch Song Trilogy, as well as for his book for the musical La…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, June 5, 2015
1939 Actor James Barton, a star of the Broadway hit Tobacco Road, returns to the show today after having been fired the previous February after quarreling with his co-stars backstage. Bo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, June 4, 2015
An unscientific survey of 44 eligible voters finds good odds for “The King and I” and Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, and tougher races in other categories.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:08PM1968 Stage and screen actress Dorothy Gish dies today in Rapallo, Italy. Her first New York stage appearance was in 1903 in East Lynne. She began her film career in 1912, but resumed her sta…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, June 2, 2015
1954 Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's Carousel is revived for a ten-week run at the New York City Center. In the cast are Barbara Cook and Jo Sullivan.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
