1882 Birthday of A. A. Milne (1882-1956), best-known as creator of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, but also a prolific Broadway playwright, author of Mr. Pim Passes By, The Truth About Blayds, Be…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1903 Opening night of The Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett play about a child, much in the same vein as her The Secret Garden. Little Princess will run just 34 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1925 Birthday of one of Broadway's all-time greatest leading ladies, Gwen Verdon (1925-2000). She was nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actress or Featured Actress in a Musical six ti…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1878 Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár (1878-1952) is born today in Budapest. He will write The Good Fairy, The Play's the Thing, The Guardsman, The Swan and Liliom, the latter of which wi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTrue aficionados of inventive theater know exactly where they need to be every January: far Off Broadway.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:10PMHere at On the Fringe we love holiday-themed shows as much as the next person. But after weeks and weeks of seasonal productions, we're ready for the winter theater season to start in earnes…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:31PM1910 American actress Agnes Booth dies today at age of 63. She was the wife of Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. and the sister-in-law of Edwin Booth.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFrom the Off Broadway musical “Fun Home” to the star-crossed “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” Times writers offer a few last-minute theater picks.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 04:06PM“I wasn’t a popular kid. I wasn’t even a geeky kid,” said Brian J. Smith, who’s garnering raves as the … Read More →
SOURCE: nytheatremag.com at 04:52PMLori Wolter Hudson remembers having a nervous breakdown in middle school in Indiana when her teacher assigned her to recite … Read More →
SOURCE: nytheatremag.com at 04:14PMIn his Tony Award acceptance speech this year for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Tracy Letts gave special thanks to the Chicago storefront scene that nurtured him. "We are the ones who sa…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:00AMIt was March of this year when I first heard from Amanda Belantera, who had begun her initial search for a New York City home for Kinokophonography Night. Amanda, along with the Kinokophone …
SOURCE: The New York Public Library at 09:33AM1860 Birthday of Lillian Russell (1860-1922), who became the epitome of Gilded Age female sex appeal and stage presence starting in vaudeville at Tony Pastor's Theatre and graduating to …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1924 Henry Oscar and Esme Biddle are the leads of Byron by Alice Law, at the Century Theatre in Bayswater, England. In a very small role is someone named Laurence Olivier.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:01AM1895 Birthday of legendary film choreographer Busby Berkeley (1895-1976), whose career will be launched with a 12-show burst of creativity on Broadway between the end of 1926 and the beginni…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1872 Birthday of Maude Adams (1872-1953), Broadway's first Peter Pan, who originated the role in 1904, and returned at least three times through 1915.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1900 Opening night of legendary musical Floradora at the Casino Theatre for a 553-performance run the first major hit of the 20th century. The production is remembered principally for the…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1913 Birthday of June Hovik, better known as June Havoc, even better known as namesake of Baby June, the character based on her in the musical Gypsy. The show pretty accurately sums up her c…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThe Rep Theatre, Birmingham: The unwritten rule of translating comedy, according to Chris Campbell, is that if you lose a laugh here and there, you are allowed to add one elsewhere. His witt…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 09:48AM1895 Birthday of Charles MacArthur (1895-1956), newsman-turned-playwright, whose wisecracking oeuvre includes The Front Page, Twentieth Century (the play on which the musical On the Twentiet…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1787 Birthday of British actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833), considered one of the finest actors of the early 18th century. Among his greatest roles was Shakespeare's Richard III. He will be …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1916 A new play by a new playwright opens at the Provincetown Playhouse in New York's Greenwich Village, far from Broadway and Times Square, but the play and the author will soon revolut…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1903 Daniel Frohman opens the New Lyceum Theatre on Manhattan's West 45th Street with E. H. Sothern in The Proud Prince. Designed by Herts & Tallant, the theatre was later rechristen…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1920 Opening night for Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, starring Charles S. Gilpin as a onetime railway porter who goes to Africa and rises to become the corrupt head of a new empire ther…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1896 Birthday of Ethel Waters (1896-1977), Broadway star of musicals and plays including The Member of the Wedding, As Thousands Cheer, Cabin in the Sky and Lew Leslie's Blackbirds.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1896 Birthday of Ruth Gordon, later to star on Broadway in dozens of plays, including Ethan Frome, The Country Wife and her own Years Ago; also in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker (sour…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1882 Birth of French playwright Jean Giraudoux, author of The Madwoman of Chaillot, Ondine, Intermezzo, Tiger at the Gates and Amphitryon 38. He lives to 1944.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1928 Six-time Tony-winning costume designer Florence Klotz is born today. Her designs will be worn by the original casts of Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, On the Twentieth…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMAs you enter that narrow, dark hallway leading to some horrific chamber where something sick and awful has happened, or is happening, is it worse to have someone jump out at you when you exp…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:29PM1903 Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland opens on Broadway, introducing the songs "I Can't Do the Sum," "Go To Sleep," "Toyland" and "The March of th…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM